


In Ten Years

by ThatBishLizzie



Category: game of thrones
Genre: Atrocities that will make Aerys look like Tommen, Bran is evil, But the three eyed raven is, But they will have babies later, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Jonerys Endgame, Many Others - Freeform, RIP BoatBaby, Resurrrection, post S8 not kind to Westeros because S8, the slowest of slow burns, well not Bran
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:56:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatBishLizzie/pseuds/ThatBishLizzie
Summary: S8 pissed me off for many reasons. It looked to me like they left Westeros and the world in a bad place, and I will be exploring that in this fic.Jonerys endgame but the slowest of slow burns. Dany kind of hates Jon at first but she hates herself just as much.There will be magic and dragons. I’m annoyed Jon didn’t have magic on the show, so that’s gonna change. But it’ll be awhile.As I mentioned in my other work, I AM NOT A WRITER, so if you come in my comments to tell me my writing is trash I’m gonna laugh at you because dude, I know.Bran is the villain, but it’s not really Bran, it’s the Three Eyed Raven.I don’t own any of these characters or background or ANYTHING, it’s all George RR Martin and D&D
Relationships: Daario Naharis & Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Yara Greyjoy & Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 420
Kudos: 268





	1. Year One: Westeros

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter is how I imagine the first year in Westeros after S8. I may not even continue this, but I thought it would be a fun. If I do, each chapter will be one year in Westeros, one in Essos (or elsewhere, etc)

Year One: Westeros

Tyrion

The ash and bone had been cleared away first, and then the broken stones. They had all said Kings Landing had been burned to the ground, but that wasn’t quite true, and perhaps it would have been better if it had.

Instead, twisted, melted, burned structures remained to be cleaned and cleared, and the broken people who’d survived the burning sat dazed and devastated, and painfully hopeful, or curled up on the ground, weeping in agony. 

The weight of it laid heavily on Tyrion Lannister’s shoulders. He had brought Daenerys here, the mad queen who had burned the city. 

He knew she would have come anyway, and maybe then he would bear no responsibility in it all. 

King Bran was indifferent to all of this misery, the cries of children in pain and loss, the weeping of mothers, the rage of fathers. The people who had built their lives in Kings Landing, to see it burned away in moments. 

The king had also ordered the clearing of trees. The one project that elicited even the slightest emotion from him. To clear away the trees all over the Crownlands, and in the Godswood at the Red Keep, and plant weirwoods in their place. 

“The old gods have no power here,” he’d explained. “The Andals cut down the weirwoods.”

This had cost them, and Tyrion knew that no argument he made would sway the young king. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, Lord Paramount of the Reach and Master of Coin had complained somewhat, as he’d wanted the bulk of funds to pay for new brothels. 

Samwell Tarly had attempted to argue that new sewers were needed. That the people would be healthier, and heal faster and more fully, with clean water and proper sewage.

Ser Davos had pointed out the need for ships. 

Tyrion himself had pleaded that the people needed food and medicine.

All these arguments and pleas were acknowledged by the king. 

He looked at his advisors, looked through them. 

“You’re all right, of course,” he said. “But first, the weirwoods.”

Whatever was left of their pitiful funds after the weirwoods, had gone into brothels.  
Bran was the king, Bronn was the master of coin. So weirwoods and brothels were the priority. 

Everything else came after.

And that had been the end of the discussion. 

Tyrion had never been liked by the people of Kings Landing, he remembered how they’d blamed him for the extra tax on whores, had blamed him for the oppressive policies that drove them into further poverty when Joffrey and Cersei had been on the throne. They had certainly never recognized that he’d saved their lives during the Battle of the Blackwater.

And many of those people, those he had saved and who had yet cheered on his execution for the murder of Joffrey, were gone now.

Those who were left, were broken and pleading and angry, and Tyrion felt the same way they did.

And they blamed him just the same. 

But this time he had to agree with them. He couldn’t have the peace he’d once had, that he was doing what was right and maybe no one else would ever know, but at least he knew.

This time, he had brought their destroyer to their door. He could try to explain it to them, try to tell them that nothing his queen had ever done before gave him the slightest indication that she would do a thing like this. That the fire of her idealism had caught him in its blaze, that he’d truly believed with all his heart she would build a better world.

And why should he not have believed it? Hadn’t she done exactly that in Essos?  
Hadn’t she cast chains off enslaved people, demanded their freedom and reparations for their years of slavery?  
Hadn’t the first flaw he’d noticed in her, been a lack of practicality that Tyrion had thought to temper with his own wisdom and cynicism?  
She had always been set against the blood of innocents on her hands.  
It had seemed sacred to her, this idea of protecting the innocent. 

And now he had nothing but time to contemplate all the ways in which he’d failed her. He was still angry at her, still consumed with the rage and revulsion. He wanted to hate her. When he’d seen Jaime’s body, crushed beside Cersei, he’d hated her. He’d hated himself. This was not what she had promised him, not what she had promised herself. He would never forgive her.

He had killed Varys. Yes, she’d been the one to order the burning. But Tyrion had killed him. Had told Daenerys that Varys had betrayed her. 

And hadn’t he been the one to give Varys the very information that had spurred the betrayal?

But he hadn’t expected Varys to betray her. What had he expected, truly?  
But none of it mattered now.  
He wished he’d never told Varys.  
There was work, and it was important work. Tyrion had once loved this work. The challenges and disputes and intrigue.  
Now it was tedious. 

The Iron Islands had gone back to raiding, reaving and raping. Tyrion sent a raven reminding Lady Yara that she’d promised that this would be no more.

Lady Yara had sent a raven back with a letter saying that she’d made no such promises to King Bran. That the promises between herself and Queen Daenerys had included the independence of the Iron Islands, and those promises had died with the queen. 

The new King cared only about finding Drogon and planting weirwoods. Repeating, reminding them, that old gods have no power in the South. He needed those trees.

His indifference had seemed at first to show an incorruptibility to power. How wonderful it would be, to have a ruler who would never go mad from ruling. Never be selfish. 

But indifference, Tyrion was starting to see, was not as good a trait for a ruler as he’d thought it would be.

And Bran’s power was actually terrifying in a person who had no value for human life.

Bran was not concerned with warning anyone of any danger, unless the danger affected him.

The small trickle of funds allowed for the city was directed at building the ports, so that at some point they could receive goods. But with so few ships, and a war torn, winter battered continent, from where would these goods come?

The Citadel was angry. They felt that they had suggested good candidates for the new King of the Six Kingdoms’ Grand Maester, but instead King Bran and his Hand chose a man who broke rules, stole books, left in the middle of his course of study, broke his vows to the Nights Watch, was married, had children, and was Lord of Horn Hill. 

The Citadel kept contact, of course, because Bran was King, and because the Citadel tried to stay out of politics, but they were angry. 

There were painfully few Maesters left in Westeros now, and the Citadel was reluctant to send more. 

Tyrion sent ravens, and at first received no response. Finally an emissary arrived to meet with Tyrion to discuss it. 

“We need Maesters,” Tyrion began.

“And you believe we are obligated to send you Maesters? Your Grand Maester broke our rules, several of them. You have shown no respect for our traditions.”

“To be fair, the rules of the Citadel are somewhat oppressive”, Tyrion argued gently, wearily. How he had once enjoyed this sparring! “We have broken the wheel at last, the wheel of oppression,” he said, but the fire that had once raged behind the words was dead and gone. They were only empty words.

The Maester laughed bitterly. “Have you?”

“We’ve elected our king, we have ended tyranny. People have a choice now. We broke the wheel,” he repeated.

“Did you? Or did you merely change the wheel?” the Maester snapped. “Your Grand Maester hasn’t even come close to finishing his study, he broke our rules, and we are only allowing him to finish his studies because we don’t want Westeros to collapse entirely into ignorance. He broke his vow to the Night’s Watch. He is a husband, father and lord. But he was chosen because he’s a friend of the King’s brother. Only that. A friend in power, has given him his lofty position. 

“Your Master of Coin is incompetent, chosen only because of his friendship with you, the Hand. Giving him Highgarden was a huge mistake, we know that this has sown discontent among the Lords of the Reach who were sworn to House Tyrell. Didn’t he help sack it? Help in the attack that ended with murdering Highgarden’s Lady and what was left of her family? Wasn’t he among the men who slaughtered men, women and children at Highgarden? And of course the Redwynes and the Hightowers, who were kinsmen with the Tyrells, cannot possibly be happy with your choice. But he’s your friend, so he was given his position. 

“The North was given their independence, yet the Iron Islands and Dorne were not. Haven’t they wanted it? Long before the North did? The Starks were represented more than any House in Westeros in that council, and now they rule it all. And it was only that council that had a vote, none of the other lords and ladies had a say, and certainly not the people. 

“Your Lady Commander of the Kingsguard is extremely competent, we will acknowledge that, but we know she was chosen because of her friendship with your brother and the Queen in the North, who is sister to the King of the Six Kingdoms. 

“Your Master of Ships is also competent, and his experience is laudable, we have no problem there, except that there aren’t many ships left to you and again, the Master of Coin is incompetent, so there won’t be any ships for awhile. Not while your king is pouring most of your resources into planting weirwoods to increase the power you said he never wanted, and your Master of Coin cares only for brothels.” 

Tyrion started to argue. “These people were chosen because -“

“Because of their friendships. Positions of high power, given due to friendship rather than merit, a king chosen by oligarchs in powerful seats, most of whom were related to him or friends of his family. Is that truly any different from what has always been? 

“Do you know how they do it in the Bay of Dragons? The people choose their leaders. Not a few select lords and ladies. The rulerships are not held for life, and the people choose from different candidates, so they have a true voice and consent in their governance. That’s how you break a wheel.”

Tyrion was silent under the weight of what the Maester had said.

“Westerosi people are suffering more than they ever have. Why say you broke the wheel when all you’ve done is install a new one?”

There was fighting all over Westeros. The Arbor and the Reach were indeed angry about the appointment of Bronn because of his role in the sack of Highgarden, and having no ties to any of the families there.

He knew nothing about money or agriculture, and Highgarden was falling apart. There was little time for a final harvest before winter hit, and Bronn was squandering it.

The Riverlands had been burned years before, again and again, and their new lord, Edmure Tully, was either as incompetent as Bronn or superbly competent and kept that to himself. 

The people of the Storm Lands were hesitant, but eventually accepted Gendry Baratheon as their Lord, or at least the smallfolk did, but the autumn storms that had given them their name had battered the lands, smashing ships and houses. 

The worst winter in living memory had been predicted by the Maesters of the Citadel. Some had believed that killing the Night King would change that, but the Maesters followed science, not magic, and their predictions had turned out to be true. 

The North was a disaster. They’d been battered by war and winter. Ramsey Bolton had destroyed Winterfell’s glass garden, and no one had the resources to rebuild it. Famine had struck them and they were dying of starvation.

None of the other kingdoms could help, because the time they should have spent preparing for winter, they’d spent at war. 

The Vale had done all they could for the North, between the war with the Boltons and the Great War, but they couldn’t spare much now, without ruining themselves. They were also dealing with the Hill Tribes and Mountain Clans, so traveling with aid for any other kingdom was out of the question. 

The River Lands wouldn’t help, whether because they couldn’t, or because Edmure Tully was still angry over Sansa chiding him at the Great Council, it was hard to say.

Queen Sansa had sent a raven to King Bran asking for aid, and Bronn had laughed outright. “Does she not know what fookin independence means? We’ve got our hands full with our own.”

The famine was spreading.  
What was left of an already insufficient store of food in the North had been stolen by Greyjoy ships that had left fires and destruction in their wake.

Tyrion sailed to meet with Yara Greyjoy to remind her once again that she’d promised there would be no more reaving.

“As I said in my letter, Lord Tyrion, I never promised you or King Bran. I promised Queen Daenerys, who had agreed to grant us our independence. Now the brother of her murderer is king. I know your ludicrous plans destroyed her, and I’d put down gold that you had a hand in her murder. You defended her murderer and chose the new king. You betrayed the queen we chose. And what a shame it would be, if something happened to you here.”

“Everyone in Kings Landing knows I’m here”, Tyrion said, fighting a hard knot of anxiety. 

“It’s sweet you think your king would care enough to avenge you. Does he care about anything? Your queen would have, of course. She would have avenged you immediately. Remember when she demanded Ellaria Sand treat you with respect? But you saw to her destruction didn’t you?”

Tyrion could see anger snapping like flames in her eyes.

“Our Queen burned a city,” Tyrion argued. “A city that had surrendered.”

“I’m aware of that, but fuck that city. Do you think I forgot them cheering my capture? Did you forget how they would have raped Sansa Stark?”

“My Lady, there were children in that city. Innocents.” 

“Maybe you forgot it was a war, and besides, didn’t the Queen take the city at first with not one child or civilian harmed? Why didn’t you let her do that in the first place? Do children who are already starving do well in sieges? Like you wanted?” She shot the words at him like arrows. “You can show yourself out now, and don’t come back. Because the next time will be the last time.”

Tyrion sailed home, thinking about what she had said. He wasn’t going to sit and feel guilty about Daenerys Targaryen. She had slaughtered a city that had surrendered to her. 

But he couldn’t stop thinking about those weeks, before that day.

She’d taken his counsel over her own instinct and it had cost her. The North had isolated her, even after she’d helped to save them, and all of Westeros, from the dead armies. Varys had betrayed her before she’d done anything wrong. Her dragon was shot, and her closest advisor was beheaded in front of her. And then she finally shattered under the weight of what they had all done to her. 

How superior we all feel calling her a monster, as if we aren’t monsters as well, be thought, bitterly. But none of them had burned a city.

The Dothraki, like the Unsullied, had been offered land for their service in the Great War. There had been about fifty thousand men left.  
A little over half of these had chosen to go back to Vaes Dothrak, but the rest had stayed to take the land.

Without their Khaleesi to keep them from it, they returned to the raiding, raping and reaving that had been their culture. With about twenty thousand riders, against the broken Kingdoms, they were unstoppable. A new Vaes Dothrak appeared in Westeros.

Dorne had declared their independence almost immediately. They sent a raven barely a full moon turn after King Bran’s coronation announcing the news. They had never bowed to the crown before, they’d only became part of the Seven Kingdoms because of marriage, and that marriage was into the Targaryen family.

Dorne’s previous Royals had been killed by Lannisters, and the last Targaryen was killed by a Stark. Now a Stark was king and a Lannister was Hand to that king. Why should they stay? 

The small council debated; Should they point out that the last Targaryen was in fact killed by the other last Targaryen, not a Stark? Would that help at all?

But of course, that would bring up the subject of Elia Martell’s children being bastardized, if they accepted the questionable annulment at all, and murdered along with Elia herself, because Rhaegar had left her and ran off with another Stark; the Dornish might believe that their love caused the death of Elia and her children, which in turn had caused the death of Oberyn, and the child of that union was the one who killed the queen whom Dorne had agreed to follow. 

They decided it was best to leave that alone. It might turn a bid for independence into a war. King Bran, as always, didn’t care one way or the other.

Tyrion had noticed that Brienne had been sick, she was gaining weight and he didn’t dare hope...and then she told the king and council she was pregnant. For the first time in a long time, Tyrion was hopeful about the future.

Davos and Tyrion found that they enjoyed each other’s company. At first there had been some tension. Tyrion had killed Davos’s son during the Blackwater battle. Davos had forgiven him in a way, and in the wasteland Westeros had become, they leaned on each other. After all, they had both served rulers who they had loved, who had listened to them even when their ideas conflicted with their own; and both had lost their way, badly. 

But Davos gave Stannis good advice, Tyrion thought bitterly. Tyrion’s advice had ruined Daenerys.

Jon

North of the Wall, Jon was haunted in his sleep. Every night offered him some terrible display, all the worse because he’d lived them all. 

He was being murdered by his own men, the betrayal as painful as the knives that butchered him. 

Or he was murdering his kin, his queen, his woman, the betrayal being his own. 

A wall of dead advancing. Ice and snow and a sea of bright blue eyes. 

A city burned, the charred bodies strewn about among broken buildings. 

Sometimes the landscapes of death and destruction would merge. This was the worst of the images, when they would blur together and he would be lost. He would see a small woman with an exquisite face and long silvery hair, on her great black mount. Was she there to save them all or kill them all? 

The savior and destroyer were one, and he couldn’t tell whether she was there to save or destroy until he could figure out whether it was snow or ash around him. Whether the still bodies were about to rise in ice, or were gone forever in fire.

When he was awake, he could see now how he had been used by everyone.

Sansa had betrayed her vow the same day she swore in the Godswood. 

His sisters...cousins...had cornered him, to form a united front against him. Arya had at least acknowledged that they’d needed Daenerys’ armies and dragons, so he was right to bend the knee.

But they didn’t trust “his queen”.  
They didn’t trust him, he realized. They didn’t trust him to choose well. They thought he’d bent the knee to her because he was spellbound by her. Or to convince her to save them. 

“You don’t know her,” he’d pleaded.

“I’ll never know her. She’s not one of us”, Arya had said.

He had told them then the truth of his birth. Why? Why had he told them? Had he stupidly hoped that their love for him would mitigate their idea that Targaryens were evil? That his love for Dany, and his tie to her as the last other family he had, might stop them from their virulence against her? 

Sansa betrayed them both.

What he should have done, he thought angrily, instead of betraying Dany, was take responsibility for his own choices. He could have told them that she promised to help before he bent the knee. How she lost a dragon trying to save him, and that was why he bent the knee to her. He saw what she was. Brave, fierce, willing to risk herself and her dragons to save him.

He could have argued that Dany had found out about Cersei building armies but she’d stayed anyway, instead of rushing back to fight her. 

She’d found out about his claim, and she’d stayed anyway, saving his life twice in that battle.

He berated himself now, realized that he should have pulled himself out of his own damn mire for one minute to stand up for the woman who had done so much for him and for all of them.

He could not get past what Dany had done that day. He was haunted by it. But as he had nothing but time now, traversing first the war torn Kingdoms and then the snowy expanse of the real North, he was reliving over and over how much she had done before that day.

For him, for the North, for Westeros. 

How they’d treated her.

Her loss of Missandei and Rhaegal, how much she had needed him, how he’d pulled away from her when he could have saved her. He knew that now without a shred of doubt. 

She had said in utter despair, “all right then. Let it be fear.”

And he had said nothing. He didn’t try to comfort her, try to love her. Maybe his feelings about her being his family, made him unable to love her like she wanted. 

But he didn’t love her as family, either. He betrayed her to his other family. He left her utterly alone and she shattered. 

And he wondered now if Bran had known she would be ambushed. And did he choose to say nothing? 

Jon was used. Badly. The only person who didn’t use him, who left herself open to him, who saved him and his home, who in fact he knew now, he had used, he had murdered.

He was glad at least that they’d forbidden him from owning lands or having a family. He thought execution would have been better, but he didn’t deserve the oblivion that would bring. 

That day he had killed her, he didn’t know what else to do, how to stop her from destroying everything in her path.

But before that...She had loved him utterly, given him everything. He’d been angry at her that she’d pointed out his claim to the throne when he’d told her about his parents. But why should she give up her own desire? She’d worked toward that throne for so long. He didn’t even want it. She’d been suspicious, and looking back, he could see that she wasn’t wrong to point out the possible motive Sam and Bran might have in telling him such a thing. They certainly hadn’t considered it to be meaningful in the least once Daenerys was out of the way. She’d told him what would happen, and she’d been right. He wondered if Sansa had made any attempt to keep her word to him at all, or had she told the first person to cross her path? 

Tyrion and Arya had both told him that Daenerys would harm him, because she knew his identity. But during the Long Night, she had saved his life. And she’d known then.

She’d sacrificed everything for him and he couldn’t do the one thing she’d asked of him.

They had all used her strength to save people who despised her, and when she’d finally broken, he’d abandoned her to her weakness, her fragility. 

And now he was a Queenslayer. Oathbreaker. Kinslayer. But worse, so much worse than that. He’d betrayed her in every way, this woman to whom he and his kingdom and all of Westeros owed their lives. And the family for whom he’d betrayed her, would move on with their lives. He would never see them again. 

He thought about the first time he’d ever seen her. He hadn’t known what to expect, but she was smaller than he’d thought. Younger. And more beautiful than he could have imagined. 

She’d loved him when he was a bastard and she’d loved him when he was her nephew. She would have had him at her side, to build her new world.

She’d been so nervous and excited about meeting his family and his people. She never said as much but he knew that she was hoping that they would like her. Accept her. And they’d treated her like the dirt beneath their feet.

He’d met her people, talked to them. They had all chosen her. And what would happen now to those freed slaves? Would they fall back into chains? If they did, Jon knew, it was on his hands. 

He would never forget the look on her face when he’d slid the blade into her. Shock. Hurt. She’d trusted him and he’d murdered her.

He remembered how Drogon had cried out as her life left her. How he’d nudged at her, trying in vain to wake her. 

Jon felt that he deserved not a moment of peace, and he could be confident at least that he would never have one. 

Arriving at Castle Black, he’d been numb. But it had been good to see Tormund, to see the free folk safe and happy at last, to see Ghost again. 

All his Night’s Watch brothers were gone. Only he and Sam remained, and Sam had abandoned his vows completely. Sam, who had come to him to tell him of his parentage, to tell him Daenerys didn’t deserve to be queen because she’d executed two damn oathbreakers as any Lord of Westeros would have done; he certainly hadn’t brought up his parentage again, and nor had Sansa.

It had only been important to them as a weapon against Daenerys. And now she was gone, and he was exiled, and they’d gotten what they wanted. 

Jon knew that Littlefinger had told Sansa that Jon and Dany would be strong together. 

“Together, they’d be difficult to defeat.”

So Sansa had worked to tear them apart.

Daenerys had never turned on him. Had never harmed him. And he’d destroyed her for people who had dispatched him to the Wall as soon as she was gone.

It wasn’t long before Jon left Castle Black with the free folk to help them build their lives again. 

“Ranging”, he called it. But he doubted anyone would care. 

He was lost to the world, lost to himself. He was glad now that Drogon hadn’t burned him. His existence, he could hardly call a life, was misery and guilt and shame, and he could not believe he deserved for one minute anything else.


	2. Year One: Essos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Year One with Dany’s POV.

There was nothing to remember. No pain. No pressure. Nothing. 

Then, suddenly, there was pain. It grew sharper as she felt warmer, and it was centered on her heart. 

Far away, someone was speaking. Chanting, really. A woman’s voice, growing closer, as the warm and the pain grew more pronounced. It felt like a journey. But she didn’t want to go. 

She tried to go back into the nothing, but there was no stopping it now, and the pain suddenly seemed to radiate from her chest outward, seeping into her arms and neck and throat. 

And then upon her fell memories, pieces of some horror. 

Thousands of men had followed her, and she’d led them to die.

Ser Jorah died defending her. 

Two of her children were shot from the sky.

Missandei, beautiful, wise Missandei, her head cut from her body.

And then she was alone. Everyone who ever loved her was gone, leaving only people who pretended to love her to achieve their own ends.

And then rage. Blind and overwhelming.

Voices echoing through the hallways of her mind.

“If they don’t fear you, they won’t obey you.”

“All right, then. Let it be fear.” 

And then there was him. Beautiful, honorable, courageous. 

He wouldn’t lie. 

“When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies.”

How she loved him! 

“You are my queen. Now and always.”

Could she truly be happy? After all the wreckage?

She could. With him. 

Then the pain, terrible and sharp. 

He’d stabbed her.

Why? 

Ashes everywhere. Queen of the ashes. 

“Children! Little children! Burned!”

The pain was sharpening. She screamed, and the woman who had been speaking was at her side, wrapping an arm around her as she sat up, draping a heavy red cloak around her trembling shoulders. 

“Welcome back, Daenerys Stormborn.”

Daenerys shivered. “Where am I?” She asked hoarsely. 

“You’re in Volantis. My name is Kinvara. What do you remember?”

“He killed me. Jon Snow murdered me.” 

“Yes,” Kinvara said, her eyes sad. “Your child brought you here. We knew he was coming.”

“Drogon? Where is he?”

“He will return. But I’ve asked him to stay away for a time, in exchange for bringing you back. We needed to be sure you could not be influenced anymore.”

“Influenced?”

“There is much to tell you.”

“I was dead.”

“Yes. And now you aren’t.”

“Why?” Daenerys demanded. “Why me and not Missandei? She was good! I’m not good! I’m a monster! Don’t you know that? Didn’t your flames tell you that?”

“The wounds of death never heal. You will bear your scar always. We could not bring her back even if she’d been brought to us. I’m sorry.”

“You should not have brought me back, either.”

“The Lord of Light has work you must do. You are the Breaker of Chains. There are chains yet to be broken.”

“I can’t break any chains. Two of my dragons are gone. My last son is missing. My armies...where are they? Did those Westerosi snakes hurt them?”

“No, Your Grace, they - “

“Do not call me that! I’m not a queen anymore.”

“You will break more chains. You will be queen again.”

Daenerys pulled the red cloak more tightly around her. “No. I won’t. I’m worse than my father. I’m worse than Cersei. I can’t start over, even if I wanted to.”

Kinvara touched her shoulder gently. “You should rest. You will have pain. I will help you. We were only able to save you. Not the child. I’m so sorry. But I’ve seen in the flames, you and the white wolf will - “

“Not the child? You told me Drogon was safe! That he would return!”

“Drogon is safe. I meant your child with the King in the North.”

Daenerys stared at her. “I was pregnant?”

“You were.”

Daenerys dropped her head into her hands, weeping with abandon. 

“Why did you bring me back?” She finally whispered. 

“The Lord of Light - “

“Where was your Lord of Light when my dragons were killed? Where was your Lord of Light when Missandei was killed? Where was your Lord of Light when I was slaughtering a city? Where was your Lord of Light when Jon Snow murdered me and our child?”

“Watching. We must all make our own choices.”

“You should have left me dead,” Daenerys said flatly. 

“Your son needs you. Would you leave him alone and heartsick, as you were, to be feared and hunted?”

Daenerys shuddered. She had nothing to say to that. “It’s cold here,” she finally murmured. 

“Come, sit with me. You feel the cold of death still.” 

They walked to a fireplace, where Kinvara waved her hand and the wood within burst into warm, crackling flames. 

“How did you do that?” Daenerys demanded.

“It’s magic. Fire magic. Would you like to learn?”

Daenerys looked at her warily. “What do I have to do?”

“Listen. Look.”

“That’s it?”

“And practice. But you will learn if it’s what you wish.”

Daenerys thought about how fine it would have been to learn such a thing before. But what could she do with it now? Nothing. Her life was nothing now, just a broken thing like herself. 

Kinvara allowed her to stay at the temple. The other priests and priestesses there were kind to her, deferential even. 

She wanted to scream at them. 

I don’t deserve kindness, she thought. I don’t deserve deference. I deserve to be dead. 

She barely slept. When she did, the screams of in innocents filled her mind. 

Or those few who had loved her, truly loved her. They were all gone, and all she had left was rage and grief. 

She would walk for hours, her mind going over and over the terrible vengeance she’d taken on a city that had surrendered. 

I am a monster, she thought. I killed innocents. Thousands of them. For nothing. They surrendered. I should be dead.

Daenerys sat at the edge of a wharf, watching the ships listlessly. 

She remembered being a girl, thinking how fine it would be to sail the seas and explore.

I could do it now, she reminded herself. No ties bound her, no throne or crown.

Her beloved son was somewhere in Valyria and she may never see him again.

Kinvara had told her he’d gone away in exchange for her life.

What life? She thought bitterly.

What good is life, when the rest is gone...Mirri Maz Duur had said these words to her.

She saw the truth in them. She would have reminded herself once, that if she looked back she was lost.

But now she was lost anyway, and looking forward was empty.

She had no plans. No armies. No dragons. No friends. No love. 

Why had Kinvara brought her back? To punish her, maybe. Maybe she was wrong in thinking she deserved death. Because death brought an end to pain. And she deserved no relief, she thought. 

She could remember being Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen. She could remember the fire that fueled her, the faith that had sustained her.

It was gone now, all of it, and so was she.


	3. Year Two: Westeros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Two in Westeros. As the Kingdoms collapse, North of the Wall rebuilds

Year Two: Westeros 

Tyrion 

King Bran could not see Essos quite as as clearly as Westeros. He could see much of its past, long past. He could even see its present, but only in glimpses. In Essos, the Old Gods clashed against the Older Gods and New Gods and ancient magic; he could see very little. Drogon was in shadow, and had been for some time. 

The Iron Islands had declared independence. 

They didn’t reave as much anymore, but had taken to commerce, like seafood, whales, seals, and they sailed in waters that were in dispute with the North. 

Sansa had written, asking Bran to mediate; but Bran was always under the trees now.

Tyrion was exhausted, and remembered too well how Yara had told him that if he ever went back to the Iron Islands she’d kill him.

The Arbor stated that they would no longer consider themselves part of the Five Kingdoms - but it was four, now - and Dorne declared that they were under their protection. 

Tyrion was more upset that now neither of the best wines would be making their way to them than anything else. 

Bran was indifferent at this as well. He said that they didn’t need the Arbor either. 

He had begun to demand that weirwoods be planted everywhere, and the Septons were angry about it. 

Their religion wasn’t outlawed, Tyrion pointed out. 

Sansa had written again, devastated by the loss of a little over a third of the North’s people to sickness and famine, and it was getting worse. 

Lord Gendry would visit Ser Davos, and he said that being a lord was much harder than being a smith had been. 

The smallfolk accepted him, but the lords treated him with contempt. Everyone was hungry, and though the Storm Lands were not faring as badly as some other kingdoms, they were not fading well either. 

He confided mostly in Davos and Tyrion. 

Tyrion remembered how in Essos, Daenerys had the support of the small folk but not the Lords, and it was difficult. He hated how much he thought of her.

Brienne had her entire energy focused on her babies, and frankly so did Tyrion. Little Jaime and Catelyn. Bran had allowed her to name them Lannister. Tyrion was happy that a part of his brother lived on in these children and it was the only joy in his life.

He missed his friends, he missed his brother. He missed himself; the man who had thrived on intrigue and power and outthinking those around him. 

How could he outthink a famine? He’d tried to guide Bronn, as Highgarden might still be fertile enough for a possible small harvest before winter stretched its icy devastating arms across all Westeros, but Bronn was not inclined to listen. He was a Lord now, Lord Paramount in fact, he didn’t have to do what he was advised, he would do things his own way. 

His own way was to have a string of whores visit Highgarden, drink what was left of the wine, and enjoy his castle.

Tyrion bitterly remembered his father in these times. Bronn was doing to Highgarden what Tywin had expected Tyrion to do to Casterly Rock. 

Now Tyrion was the Hand of the King, the Lord of Casterly Rock...and it was meaningless. 

The Iron Bank had sent an emissary. If Westeros couldn’t find someone who could pay their debt, the bank would find someone who could.  
All loans throughout the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros were being called in, and no bank would loan them a single coin until it was paid. 

Tyrion noticed that Davos seemed to have aged ten years.

Davos would often speak of times long gone. His lost son. Stannis Baratheon and his sweet daughter, the Princess Shireen. Jon. 

Davos felt that what they’d done to Jon was unforgivable.

“What could we have done?” Tyrion had asked. “If we’d let him go free, it would have meant war.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about everything else. He was a good man. You know he was. And everyone used him. Played him and his woman against each other.”

“We weren’t trying to play them against each other,” Tyrion said weakly. 

“Do you ever think how things would be now, if we’d encouraged them to marry?”

“I doubt they could figure out how to stop a famine,” Tyrion said bitterly. 

“They’d care about it. They’d have their attention on it. They would have likely chosen a Master of Coin who knows how a loan works. They certainly wouldn’t spend every bit of coin on trees that bear no fruit, and brothels.”

Tyrion couldn’t argue, and there was an anger in Davos, mingled with a terrible sadness. 

They’d used Jon and Daenerys, had destroyed them, and now they were left with the ramifications of the choices they’d made.

Samwell 

Sam Tarly had a nagging feeling that he had betrayed Jon. He couldn’t quite figure out how; but now he had everything he’d ever wanted, and Jon was exiled. It wasn’t fair. 

He told Bran of his feelings, but Bran had only smiled. 

“You did exactly what you were supposed to do.”

Sam was not satisfied with that. What did that even mean? 

He had begun to read about wargs. There was not much written about the Three Eyed Raven. 

But an ancient maester at the Citadel had told him there had been once; not exactly a library of information, but more than they had now.

“But he made them burn it,” the old man had said, sipping messily at his mug of thick broth.

“Who?” Sam had asked, perplexed.

“The Three Eyed Raven.”

“How? I thought he was bound to a tree? How did he even get to the Citadel?”

“The Raven doesn’t have to be there to make a man do his bidding.”

“I...I thought it was impossible to warg into a human.”

“It’s impossible to warg into anyone with a strong mind. But he doesn’t have to warg. All he must do is wait. Wait for weakness. Have you ever been hungry? Have you ever grieved? Have you ever been angry? That’s what he waits for. For the will to be pliable. And then all it needs, is a push.”

Sam had had a moment of terror. That couldn’t be true. But if it was, how fortunate they were that Bran was a good man!

The old maester laughed then. “It doesn’t matter what Bran was. Bran is no more. Come to me tonight. I’ll show you what little writing I’ve saved on the matter.”

Sam had been anxious throughout the day, but that night he went to the maester. He found the old books torn to pieces, some piled into the fireplace, burning. 

The old man stood in the center of the room, his eyes wide, holding a dagger.

“He’s found me,” He gritted, as if fighting to get the words out. Then he plunged the dagger into his own throat.

The other maesters demanded Sam keep this private. Why ruin the reputation of an old man?

Sam returned to Kings Landing debating whether to tell Bran. He wanted to keep his word to the maesters, he didn’t want to tell him, but he felt anxious about it. He had to tell him. The pressure was building. A pervasive dread. Lying to the king was treason, wasn’t it?

He went to Bran at last and told him, not about the suicide, but what the old maester had said about the Three Eyed Raven; and Bran smiled. 

“Your loyalty was tested. But you came to me. You will be rewarded. It’s good you did not listen to that man; who but a madman would stab his own throat?”

“Of course,” Sam smiled. He’d done the right thing. He could feel it in his gut. The pressure had lifted.

Jon

North of the Wall, Jon was helping to restore Hardhome. The true North was unrelentingly cold and not exactly a good place for agriculture, but this was the Land of Always Winter and the people had lived here for thousands of years. They knew their land. 

Jon wanted to try to borrow coin, to build glass gardens, but from what little information had trickled to the Wall, he’d found that Westeros was on the brink of collapse and no bank in Essos would loan to anyone on the continent.

Jon wanted to reach out to them, to point out that North of the Wall had nothing to do with the rest of Westeros. But how could he? The Wall owed a debt to the Iron Bank, and Jon had been its Lord Commander. The North owed a debt, and Jon had been its king. He tried to approach Tormund, who had chucked.

“You southerners,” he’d said affectionately, slapping his arm. “We don’t need southern coin. It starts with debt. And before you know it, they’ll want us to kneel. No, little crow, we’ll do things as we have for thousands of years.”

They built two ships at Jon’s insistence, and were too far North to have much issue with the Ironborn. They would fish and bring back whales, for meat, and Jon taught them how to make oil from the blubber. 

Jon put his all into his work, into hunting, into building. He liked to work himself into exhaustion. Too much work meant little time to think. Fatigue at night, meant collapsing into his blankets. 

But nothing could stop the dreams. Her face. Her voice. 

Sometimes he would see Ned Stark in his dreams. He would call Jaime Lannister a Kingslayer. An Oathbreaker. Whatever the king had done, Lord Stark could see no honor in killing a king he’d been sworn to serve. 

But worse, was a Kinslayer. Even the gods hated a Kinslayer. 

Jon would shiver when he thought of it. 

As Bastard of Winterfell, he could have honor. 

He’d followed Ned Stark’s example, to have honor, to keep his word, to be true to himself. 

And now that was all lost, the stain of his kin’s blood on his hands.

Another dream came to him near the end of the second year. A weirwood tree, with bleeding eyes, reaching its branches toward him. 

“You have fallen into default, Aegon of House Targaryen,” the tree told him. 

“Default? I owe nothing,” he said angrily. “The Iron Bank - “

“I do not speak of such trifles as the Iron Bank. Nor do I speak only of what you owe, but what you are owed.”

“I’m owed nothing.”

“You are in default,” the tree repeated. “Yours is the Song of Ice and Fire. You’ve forsaken your fire.”

“If this is more of that Prince who was Promised horseshit, I don’t - “

“You are no Prince, Aegon Targaryen. You are a King. And you are in default.”

“Of what?” He demanded.

“Your destiny.”

Snow fell all around him and he tried to walk away from the tree, but as he turned, he saw Her.

She was wearing a red dress of gauzy material, her hair pulled back into a single braid, with curls escaping and blowing in the wind around them. The low cut of the dress showed the wound he’d given her.

They stared at each other in silence, and he jolted awake, sweating.

The people treated him with deference, he had saved them all. But he could not accept that. Only the children and Ghost, and every once in awhile, Tormund, ever saw him smile. 

Mostly he worked and drank and tried to help his adopted people rebuild their lives. 

Sometimes, he would pick fights. He wanted to hit something, or be hit. 

But at night, when winds screamed icy songs of death and misery and no work could be done, he would sit in scathing anguish and drink deeply the Northern brew and hope for oblivion.


	4. Year Two: Essos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Two in Essos

Year Two: Essos

Daenerys 

Daenerys did not know how much time had passed since she’d died and returned. She had tried to cut her braid, but the people of the temple did not allow her to have sharp objects. They feared she would harm herself.

Kinvara had told her that she hadn’t been defeated. She’d been tricked. 

Daenerys had tried to explain that yes, she had been defeated. The woman she’d been wouldn’t burn a city. 

Kinvara had smiled sadly and said, “No. She wouldn’t.”

She wished she could somehow talk to Jon, to ask him if he’d felt this lost when he’d been brought back. But of course he had been the one to murder her. She wondered how he had faced the people who’d buried a knife in him. Had he been able to forgive them?

It didn’t matter. She would not forgive him. It wasn’t just the murder of putting a dagger in her at last, that she could not forgive. It was the slow torture that had murdered her spirit, while he had stood by, or even participated. Whether it was malice or stupidity or indifference, he had contributed to her shattering.

She could not forgive him. And nor could she forgive herself.

She hadn’t wanted to know what was happening in the world. She would wander wraithlike through the temple, or walk through the roads or to the wharf. 

“It’s like I’m a wight,” she said dully one night.

“You are a wight,” Kinvara told her. “A wight of fire. The wights you fought were bloodless creatures of ice. Not you. You are Fire and Blood.”

She had begun to learn things from Kinvara. How to make fire from nothing had been only the start. 

She’d found it difficult at first. They would sit outside and work together.

It felt almost like a flex, like a tightening of a muscle she’d never used, that had atrophied. 

At first, there had been nothing. Then, slowly, the air would grow warm around them. 

The first time she’d managed to coax little sparks, they danced at her fingertips, and she’d stared in amazement. 

The second time, the sparks were small flames. 

The third time, whatever muscle it was in her, became immediately taut, ready, like a thing that had been rusted from being unused, suddenly scoured and new. The atrophy was gone, and ten streaks of flame shot clear across the field from her fingers. She stared at the lines of fire burning the grass in front of her. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Oh, no, Daenerys Stormborn. You mustn’t be sorry. Now the real work may begin.”

Daenerys began to wonder now if Jon was a good king. She hated herself for wondering. The throne had taken so much of her energy for so long, it seemed strange to give it no thought. 

She asked Kinvara, who looked at her with that sad expression she often wore.

“The Iron Throne is gone. Jon Snow was exiled to the Wall for your murder.”

Daenerys stared at her. 

“Who is ruling?”

“They believe it’s Bran Stark.”

“Bran Stark? He’s the king? And he exiled Jon?”

What the fuck was wrong with that family? 

They had no loyalty to her, that was for certain. It could not have been for the crime of killing her, when any one of them would have been happy to do so. No, they just wanted him out of their way. 

“Your Unsullied would have warred with them if they’d let him go free.”

“My Unsullied...they’re really not mine anymore. Where are they? How is Grey Worm?” The only one left alive, who was loyal to her, save Drogon. 

“Many died in Naath from the Butterfly fever. But Grey Worm lives. They found out what Daario Naharis was doing, and joined him.”

“What...what’s Daario Naharis doing?”

“He is trying to keep your legacy alive. He had only the Second Sons. The Unsullied who followed you have joined him, but they are even together but a small army. They’ve kept Meereen.”

“Kept Meereen? What of Astapor and Yunkai?”

“They’ve fallen back to the Masters.”

Daenerys felt suddenly sick. “So it was all for nothing,” she whispered. “As if I never lived at all.”

“Oh, no, Daenerys Stormborn. Meereen is still free. And in the heart of every slave burns rebellion. You began a fire that has become an inferno. They will fight one day. Or they hope to. Even here, in Volantis. There are five slaves for every master. They fear. But they hope. They will rebel. Only time can tell if they will succeed.”

Daenerys slumped in her chair. “I can’t help them,” she murmured.

“As long as you believe you can’t,” agreed Kinvara. 

Daenerys missed Drogon. It was not that she missed his power. She missed him. She wondered if he missed her too, or had he forgotten her? Or had he been harmed? Killed by those Westerosi monsters? They called her a monster, and monster she may be. But she was a monster like her children. Fire and Blood.

The monsters in Westeros were like things that crept and slivered in the dark, dank shadows. Like maggots, they would never command the power of a dragon, but could devour you just the same, feeding on sores and wounds. 

She agreed to go with Kinvara to Asshai. She felt as if this was the place for her now. Dark and full of poison water that glittered black as dragonglass in the day, glowing green at night.  
A place of monsters. 

She no longer deserved her house with the red door and the lemon tree outside her window. No, this was the place for her now. A place of darkness, as if the sneaking predilection for it had been borne like a contagion from Westeros. Even the name of Westeros could stir once again her virulent rage. 

But what could she do? She didn’t have it in her to begin again. 

Kinvara presented her to the priestesses there, and she was treated as an honored guest. What a privilege, they told her, to welcome the Mother of Dragons and Breaker of Chains.

Not wishing to offend, she waited until she was alone with Kinvara to address this.

“Only one of my children lives. If he lives.” She pushed past the clutch of grief at the thought that Drogon no longer lived. “I’ve broken no chain in years, and likely never will again. I failed to protect those I loved. Who loved me. And worst of all, I burned innocents. Please, if you’ve any fondness or even respect for me at all, explain this to them. I’m no one. Nothing. A killer and nothing else.”

“Drogon lives. And you are still the mother of his brothers. If we are to stay as I hoped, you will learn things here. But of course you may face danger. If you will promise not to harm yourself, I have a gift for you.”

She handed her a dagger. Daenerys looked at it and a chill settled in her scarred and broken heart.

“This is Jon’s dagger.” 

“It’s your dagger now, Daenerys. Remember who you are.”

She was curious but unwilling for now to learn magic of Asshai; too well she remembered Mirri Maz Duur and her blood magic. 

But she liked to walk. To wander through the gloomy streets. She had her dagger now, but she had not an idea of how to wield it effectively as a weapon. 

She knew Kinvara had brought her here for a purpose, but did not seem disappointed at her wanderings. In fact, Daenerys suspected the priestess wanted her to do so. 

“We cannot sail to Valyria, so now is the time,” she told her. “Go on, but beware. You are not ready for Stygai.”

Daenerys had no intention of venturing to Stygai, but she didn’t fear it as she knew she should.

She walked for hours, as she had these last years since she’d died. She kept her hair covered and her eyes lowered. 

This was a city of darkness, and she was a thing of darkness now too, she thought.

“I’d go no further,” a man walking along the mountain called out to her as she passed. 

She smiled at him, grateful for the counsel. “Is this where one would enter Stygai? I’ve been advised to stay away.”

“Oh no. This is a place of burned bones. There are dragons.”

Daenerys thought she might laugh if not for tears that threatened. 

“I’ll take my chances,” she told him.

She felt his eyes follow her as she walked on. 

Dragons, she thought. Once she had the only three living dragons. Now there was only one, and her grasping had robbed him of his brothers and herself. 

From her place on the hill she stood, she could see down into the city. It was growing dark and the black water was starting to glow its phosphorescent green. 

She heard a sound then, almost a roar, but young; she knew it was young, she knew its nature though she hadn’t heard it in years. 

She turned sharply. A young dragon. Maybe a year or two at best, in the dark it looked black but she could see a blue gleam along its scales. She stared at it, and it landed before her, giving another roar.

I should be afraid, she thought. Another cry came from above, then another, and she was surrounded by three young dragons. 

The blue dragon was the largest, and a silver stood beside him; the smallest was red, standing at his other side. 

She stood at their center, watching them. 

She knew she must not run. Her heart wanted to reach for them, but she knew she’d best not do that either.

She wondered wildly if Lannisters stood unmoving and admiring when confronted with lions; if Starks did so with wolves.

But dragons were smarter than either of these. 

She felt connected to them, almost as if by some tether, and she knew that wasn’t possible. The tethers had snapped as her two children had been shot from the sky. Her tether to Drogon...but she felt that too, suddenly. It tingled.

Her mind felt as her leg would, in her childhood, when she would curl up on it; it would become numb. Then she would stand, and a thousand invisible needles would pierce through the flesh and muscle as blood rushed back into it.

She opened her mouth as if she would speak, and then the thunderous roar of her grown son stormed above her. 

“Drogon,” she whispered as he landed before her. He leaned close to her, as if to make certain it was her, and the tether fairly sang with his joy as well as her own. 

She reached up and touched him, and he all but nuzzled against her, then stepped back, nudging the young ones forward. 

In his words that weren’t words, she understood; these were his children, his sibling’s children. The eggs had been lain before they’d ever left Essos. 

And that hurt. Her children had created new life, and she’d been too fixated on her throne to even see. 

Now though, the three young dragons, her grandchildren, were nuzzling close to her, and her son stood beside her, she could feel his pride. 

She touched them, and the silver one climbed onto her. She giggled, remembering Viserion, how he would climb all over her long after he’d grown too large to do so. 

She sat down on the ground to cuddle him. It had been so long since she’d been able to cuddle with a young dragon, and oh, how she had missed it. 

The other two saw her sitting as an invitation to climb onto her as well.

She wished she’d never gone to Westeros. She’d missed them being babies, she’d lost their other parent. She’d led them and thousands of others to their deaths defending a land that despised her from the dead, and then fighting for a throne that no longer existed. 

Drogon was larger than before. She wondered how much larger he would grow. Balerion had died at two hundred years. Drogon had not yet seen ten years and yet he was enormous. 

“I’ve missed you,” she told him, and he swept his wing down for her. 

She carefully climbed up the offered wing and he took off, sweeping across the sky, followed by the young ones. 

When she returned hours later, Kinvara stood smiling at her.

“You knew we would find each other.”

“I saw it in the flames.”

She slept better that night than she had since she’d died.

She walked in her dreams as she had walked through the streets that day. 

This was an unfamiliar place. But familiar somehow. Valyria. 

But as she pressed further, she saw snow all around her.

The dragons will return, a voice told her. You’re on the path now. 

She saw one of those wretched white trees with their bleeding eyes and red leaves that they’d had at Winterfell. She immediately felt angry. The winds tore at her soft red dress. 

Then she saw him. Jon Snow. Her greatest love. Her greatest enemy. The man who’d committed the worst treachery against her, who had betrayed her in every way. 

He turned around then, as if the tree had spoken to him. Had angered him. 

He saw her. She froze. The wind howled all around them.

She woke shivering, and walked to the fireplace, waving her hand over it, smiling at it in satisfaction as it lit with flames.

She poured herself some wine, drinking deeply.

The next morning, she told Kinvara she wished to practice more magic; and she wanted to learn how to fight. How to defend herself. She may never again be a queen, but by the gods, she would never again be a victim.


	5. Year Three: Westeros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Three, Westeros. 
> 
> CW, violence in this chapter!

Westeros 

Davos

Davos Seaworth sat at a table, waiting.  
Over two years had passed since the Great War and the Last War. 

Why they still called the war between Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister The Last War, no one knew. It had certainly been far from it. It was something Queen Daenerys had said at a war council and it just stuck. But it had not been the last war by any means. Although their King referred to the small wars all over Westeros as ‘uprisings’. 

It had become impossible to stop them or control them. 

Davos was tired. Not tired as in wanting to sleep. Tired as in a bone deep weariness that was with him always.

He thought about Jon Snow all the time now, and the ethereal silver haired queen he had loved. 

There could be no doubt the queen loved Jon. Davos remembered her waiting for him. She’d gone North of the Wall without hesitation to save him. And when they’d had to return without him, she’d been distraught. 

Her men had had to stop her from rushing back out after him, and she’d stood, watching the great snowy landscape, waiting. Her knight had attempted to convince her to come in, but she kept insisting, just a little longer.

When he’d returned, she’d stood at the door watching them undress him and warm him up, then refused to leave him, keeping vigil at his bedside. 

Anyone could see she was a woman in love, by her expressions, by her actions.

She’d stayed at Winterfell to fight beside Jon, despite how the North treated her, despite finding out that Cersei was not sending armies and was building her forces. 

It was not so easy to see that Jon loved Daenerys; he was a man of few words and his actions were bound up with war.

But his family knew, and Davos knew. People who knew him well, knew he loved her. Davos had not seen the lad smile so much in all the time he’d known him, as he did around her. Before they’d been together, he would watch her longingly. 

Davos felt almost as if he could hate the North for what they’d done to Jon and his woman, but now he could only pity them. They were dying by the hundreds now. For all Queen Sansa’s attempts to blame Queen Daenerys for the low stores, the stores were already not enough to get them through winter, and then the raids that first year by the Ironborn had all but obliterated them. 

Westeros was a dead thing, rotting now, and Davos wanted nothing more than to sleep and sleep and sleep. 

He felt that he had failed Jon. Jon was a good man. He deserved better, and so had Daenerys.

The last time Davos had seen Jon, the man had been a shell. Davos grieved. He grieved the courageous young king, and he grieved the fierce little queen he had loved. 

He hated what today would bring. Too many memories of ghosts that still haunted his mind.

Dragonstone. Today he was going to Dragonstone with Tyrion and a team of men. He was waiting for Tyrion, who had volunteered to join them. He knew that the little man would come in, complain about the wine, and yet drink two glasses. And then they would be on their way.

Tyrion 

Although he’d volunteered to join Ser Davos and others on their journey, he’d started to regret it as the day grew closer, and now that they were here, back at Dragonstone, he felt sick.

It had been Bronn’s idea to go to Dragonstone and see if Daenerys had left anything of value. 

Tyrion had thought he could be of help. He knew where everyone had slept, where they’d kept their belongings. 

But now he felt assaulted by memories. 

He wanted to go into Varys’s rooms first, before anyone else. Varys had been his oldest friend. He’d saved Tyrion’s life. And Tyrion had repaid him with betrayal and death. 

Tyrion had wanted to enter Daenerys’s room first as well, before anyone could begin pulling it apart, but he knew he had a choice of one, so he chose Varys’s room. 

The room was neat. Untouched. Varys’s rings were the only items of any real value. A box revealed letters to the Lords of Westeros telling them of Jon’s lineage. What a waste that entire thing had been, Tyrion thought. He wished for the hundredth time that he’d never told him. 

He held up a half full bottle and studied it. Bran had said Varys wanted to poison Daenerys. Had this been the bottle?  
Varys, he thought miserably, you were right. 

He sighed deeply, and walked down the hall to his queen’s room. They’d already begun looking through Daenerys’s things. Clothing lay strewn about the room. She didn’t have a lot of jewelry, but there were a few silver pieces in the shape of dragons. 

Some of the gifts left over from masters who’d lavished her with bribes to prevent her from freeing the slaves, sat in boxes to be loaded back on the ship.

Other things like a hairbrush, silver strands still clinging to the bristles, a few letters, her seal stamp, lay across the bed. A few books on the floor. A cup of tea, half full. Tyrion picked up the hairbrush, turning it over in his hands. 

He laid it on his lap and lifted one of the letters. Her small print across the page, promising Daario that she would help him as soon as the throne was won. Of course she wouldn’t abandon her people, she assured him in writing. 

“They all hate me here. However I’ve bled for them, whatever I lost. They don’t care.”

Tyrion read over her words. His hands were shaking. He hadn’t noticed at first, but trying to read the trembling page, he decided to go to his own room. 

As he stood, he saw a scroll, sealed with her three headed dragon. He lifted it and put it into his pocket with her hairbrush and left the room where men were going through her dresses. 

Scavengers, he thought angrily, hating them.

His own room was no less painful, reminding him of failure upon loss upon failure.

He sat down and opened the scroll, pulling back the seal. 

It was her own writing, but not a letter. It was a Last Will. Tyrion frowned as he saw the date. It was only a day or two after he’d brought up the succession. She’d been angry at him, he remembered. Told him to focus on getting the throne. Not on her dying.

And yet, she’d written a will, as he’d suggested. 

She always listened to me, he thought. Even when she wanted to do something different. She took his counsel and his counsel had been naught but poison.

Tyrion started to read the will, unsure what prompted him; self hatred maybe. 

It started out with her long list of titles, and went on to describe that the three councils-three councils?-would choose a successor. That Tyrion Lannister, the Queen’s Hand, had shared with her the method of the Night’s Watch, the casting of a ballot, and indeed do the Iron Islands not choose their leaders in the same way with their kingsmoot?

The will went on to describe that this could still cause wars. What’s to stop people from warring if there is no succession?

“How men love to war! But our aims are to prevent that,” her small neat words stated. “People learn to love their chains,” the will said, “and those of a lordship, a king or queen, may hold them down as surely as a whip. But they may in time come to see that a council of their own, whom they’ve chosen, can be a shelter in the storm of the power above them, a clear way to take part in it, to navigate the choices made in the laws that govern them.”

Tyrion frowned. She’d never discussed any of this with him. She’d told him about Meereen, how she’d charged Daario with guarding the people until they choose their rulers. 

He read on, her tight print. 

“Having no children and expecting none, all personal wealth shall be divided thus...” and here she described the things she wanted to provide for Missandei, for Grey Worm, for Jorah, for Tyrion himself. 

She’d left him all of Dragonstone, Tyrion read. He felt a wave of nausea as he read. 

He walked to the cabinet and poured some wine. Why had he come here? 

Would she have changed the will later? He had no idea. He walked outside, looked out over the sea that raged against the sand. She’d been born here, and she’d left it to him.

He stood by the edge, cup and bottle in hand, and drank deeply. 

He and Davos were silent on the trip back, both caught in their own grief.

Tyrion was afraid. There was a dread in him, that he could not quite name.

Much of Westeros was perishing in sickness and famine and conflict.

Some people were hoarding food.

Tyrion told Bran about it, hoping that he would care, hoping he would devise a plan to help them.

Bran had the men brought to him.  
They explained that there was not enough food for everyone 

“Forgive us, Your Grace, but we have to put our own first.”

“You haven’t planted the Weirwood trees,” Bran said, in his customary tone that had no emotion. 

“I’m sure you understand, food comes first, Your Grace”.

Bran studied the lord who had spoken, and for just a moment something showed on his face; not emotion, of course. Concentration, maybe. 

Before Tyrion could give it any further thought, the lord looked confused, as if he had heard something odd; his eyes grew wide, in an expression of sheer terror. 

Then he reached up and pushed his fingers into his own eye sockets, crushing his eyes and tearing them out of his face.

He fell to the floor, thrashing and screaming and bleeding. Tyrion stared at him in horror.

Bran impassively turned his attention to the other lords.

“Do you too intend to defy me, or will you plant the trees?”

They quickly assured him they would plant the trees.

Reports came a few days later, that three other lords who had refused to plant the trees threw themselves off towers, and two more stabbed themselves with their swords.

Weirwoods were quickly planted throughout Bran’s Four Kingdoms.

Bran had ordered that if people were caught plotting to hoard or steal food they would be executed for treason.

He assured his small council that he was able to see them plotting. 

“They’re essentially being executed for crimes they haven’t committed,” Tyrion pointed out softly, the horror thickening his throat. 

“Yet,” Bran said.

Brienne was afraid for her children in a world such as this, and Tyrion could hardly blame her. The small council decided to have a secret meeting about the recent events.

They’d barely begun, when Bran joined them, smiling faintly.

“Did you think I didn’t know? Don’t worry, I won’t have you executed this time, but I think we all know the definition of treason.”

Someone in one of the kingdoms had hired an assassin to kill him. They heard about it, and debated whether to warn him. 

A man snuck into Bran’s room one night. They found out later that he’d cut his own throat in front of Bran when he got there.

Tyrion sat with Podrick and Bran that night, drinking heavily, watching Bran’s eyes, white and searching. 

When he returned, he looked at Tyrion gravely.

“We should find to find a way to stop the pestilence,” he said.

“The...pestilence?” 

“Samwell Tarly never really earned his link for medicine. Many Maesters were killed during the wars. People who are cold and hungry are not as careful about hygiene as they should be. They’ll eat meat that’s from animals that died less recently. It’s a sickness now that’s killed about four thousand people. And it’s spreading.” His voice had the same toneless quality, as if he was speaking of abstract ideas rather than a threat to the realm. 

Tyrion looked at him in horror, then at Podrick whose face showed the same fear. 

King Bran’s face was utterly devoid of emotion. He didn’t care at all. 

Jon 

Jon had worked with the free folk for almost three years. They were mostly at Hardhome, but a few other settlements had been built nearby. 

He had shown many of them how to build ships, that they might continue fishing, and taught them things he’d learned in all his years south of the Wall. 

It felt like another life.

Sometimes women would come to him, to offer him comfort. He had at first tried to be gentle, but after a time he was not able to muster the patience. 

He told them that he’d stabbed his woman through her heart and in truth he’d died with her.

Once the free folk were seeing that they could truly have their old life back, were better and stronger, he saw their deference was greater than ever. He was a god to them, a king. 

Hardhome had been restored to its original...glory? It’s original state, rather. Other keeps had been rebuilt, and still others built from nothing. 

Jon hadn’t been south of the Wall in over two years, almost three. 

He had helped the Free Folk return to their life. They had had losses. But they thrived now.

Jon himself was not thriving, but then, he didn’t want to thrive. He would never thrive again, he knew. 

Tormund had for a few moons encouraged him to find a woman, but Jon’s responses to this had grown increasingly hostile so he gave up. The women were generous in their offers, but the idea of being with a woman now was too painful to contemplate.

There was only her. His silver haired queen who had saved Westeros with the North, who had saved his own life twice, who had lost almost everything, who had burned a city of innocents in revenge. Who he had murdered in cold blood, while kissing her. 

He knew also that the family who he’d betrayed her for, he would never see again. 

He hadn’t really tried to reach her. That day, with the snow and ash falling around her, he’d felt that the woman he’d fallen in love with was gone. But he hadn’t tried to pull her back from the abyss. 

Even that night, before the horror of her rage destroyed the city. She’d sat with him, told him that she’d been right. That he’d betrayed her by telling Sansa, that Sansa had told Tyrion and Tyrion had told Varys. It was just as she said. And yet she’d kissed him, she’d forgiven him, she’d been ready to give herself to him. He had pulled away from her. 

He remembered the desolate expression on her face. 

“All right, then. Let it be fear.”

Why had he left her alone? He’d said to Varys that she shouldn’t be alone. She’d lost her dragon and her dearest friend. He should have held her, comforted her. 

Why had their relation suddenly become so important? For all her fear of him taking her claim, she’d saved his life in the battle at Winterfell. She’d asked him to be with her, build the new world with her.

And he hadn’t made any attempt to bring her back from the edge, though he knew he was at least in part what had pushed her over.

The Free Folk were rebuilding their lives now, and Jon had stayed with them to help them. 

He could see now that for all their deference, all their high regard, they would not need him now.

He approached Tormund to tell him his plan. To go North, further North, to keep going. As Arya had gone west of Westeros. He wanted to know what was North of the North. That’s what he told Tormund. 

But he didn’t want that; like Bran had said once, he really didn’t want at all anymore.

Tormund had looked at him, had accepted his explanation, but Jon could see he knew. 

Tormund knew he’d lost his friend that day in Kings Landing and there was little chance he would ever see him again.

The ground stretched pure blinding white before him and the sky was a brilliant blue above it. Jon didn’t know anymore how long it had been since he’d seen another person. He’d imposed upon himself the exile of exiles. He had not expected to feel better, cleaner, and he didn’t. 

He remembered Tyrion telling him to ask him in ten years if killing his queen, his love, his kin, was right. 

He knew it couldn’t be ten years, but he also knew now that he would never deem the act right.

He had pared his life down to only the necessary. He hunted to feed himself and Ghost. He owed it now to Ghost to stay alive. 

It was just them out here, he could not abandon his loyal direwolf after all they’d gone through, now it was only the two of them.

He found caves sometimes to sleep, and one of these had an energy that felt oddly familiar.

Inside that cave he found a ruined, gutted weirwood tree. 

He decided to stay, as the storm outside raged.

He dreamed again of the tree that accused him.

A tree demanding a kinslayer, queenslayer, oathbreaker, to be a king. 

King of what, he’d wanted to demand. The Six Kingdoms had their king, the North had its queen. 

But the tree whispered anyway.

You have forsaken your fire, Aegon of House Targaryen. 

When he woke he was angry. 

He walked through the cave, wondering why he felt a presence there. 

The storm had let up, but something compelled him to keep moving through the cave. 

He found a large old satchel, and he lifted it curiously. A wineskin fell out, and some scrolls. One had letters that were messy, barely legible, and as Jon held the scroll he could feel terror and despair, as if somehow the man who’d written the words had left his dread like the ink and it hadn’t dried, instead soaking into Jon through his fingers. 

“He sees. He sees all. He says if I stay I too will see all. And I want it. Gods help me I want it.

If I don’t stay he will have no host and the memory of man will be gone forever. But if I stay, I will be gone forever.

“I am the blood of the dragon. I must not fear.”

Jon felt a chill down his back at those last words. 

It was something Daenerys had told him, in that blissful idyll between Dragonstone and White Harbor as they’d lain naked in bed discovering each other. 

She would say those words to herself. 

I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I must not fear.

Jon looked into the satchel to see if there were anything else, anything to give him a clue as to who had written the words of Daenerys.

A sword fell onto the dirt floor. A sword he knew well. 

Dark Sister. He recognized it of course, from books he’d read in childhood. He thought of Arya. She had been so fascinated by it. He knew it had long ago belonged to Visenya Targaryen.

Jon knew then what he had to do.

He had to bring it to Essos, to leave it in some place where Dany’s spirit might be.

You have forsaken your fire, a voice whispered to him.

He had, he’d forsaken his fire, had murdered his fire. 

He could offer this. He could never be forgiven, but perhaps he could give her this, this sword of her blood, and she could wield it in the Night lands where he’d sent her.


	6. Year Three: Essos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Three in Essos

Year Three: Essos

Daenerys 

Riding Drogon again had filled Daenerys with new life, but it had also caused her nightmares about that day in Kings Landing to return with a vengeance. 

She would wake sweating, the terrible echoes of terrified screams in her head. 

I don’t deserve to live, she thought. To ride the sky with her beloved son, surrounded by his children, the wind in her hair, the thrill of flying. 

She didn’t deserve any of it. She’d led her people to death, her children, her friends.

She should have bent the knee to Cersei to save Missandei. Missandei was worth far more than any throne ever could be.

And the people of Kings Landing. Gods. She’d murdered them. Rained fire on innocents, specifically targeted them in her rampage. 

But of course, as the guilt slashed through her, she reminded herself that in all likelihood this was why she had been granted new life. To make penance. She could never make amends, not if she lived a thousand years. But maybe she was meant to live, to revisit again and again what she had done. 

Her fire magic was improving. Once that thing within her flexed freely, the magic became les about coaxing the flames out of her, but controlling them and preventing a conflagration. 

Kinvara had laughed when she’d told her she wished to learn how to fight. 

“You can send controlled bursts of flame at people. You don’t need to learn combat. But of course, I thought you would. I saw it in the flames that you would.”

Kinvara summoned a man from Braavos, who had a merry disposition. He began by telling Daenerys that Braavos had despised dragon lords for centuries, but as she was the first and only dragon rider in all of history to ride against slavery, rather than to enforce it, the Braavosi could not hate her. 

After a brief declaration of the honor he had in meeting and training the Breaker of Chains, he abandoned any attempt at deference. He taunted her mercilessly and during their sessions, she found herself knocked on her arse several times a day.

She enjoyed it. The deference she’d once loved and craved was a bane to her now. She had become her father, worse even, and she felt sick when people would call her queen, or refer back to titles she’d earned before she’d become queen of the ashes.

She had to admit the training was frustrating; it was more like dancing than fighting. The man laughed when she told him this.

“It’s water dancing,” he told her. 

“I don’t want to dance, I want to defend myself.”

“In good time, my little queen.”

“I’m not a queen! I’m no one at all.”

He laughed again. “You are not no one, and I do believe you are far to willful to ever become no one.”

She frowned, and was about to ask him what he was talking about when another practice attack sent her sprawling.

In time, she improved. And as she improved, she began to see the artistry in the things the man was teaching her. 

Kinvara sent for others as well, men who came to teach her and train her. Daenerys knew she might never be proficient as any of these men, but she would never again be helpless.

Daenerys carried the dagger Jon had given her. She mused to Kinvara that she would like to acquire a sword at some point. With no wealth to her name anymore, she knew she might have to wait, and she would never again be able to spare the cost of a Valyrian steel sword, but really, any sword would do.

Kinvara smiled at her. “We can find you one to use for now. But your sword will be on its way here before long. In another life, you may have never wielded a sword. But in this life, you are meant to have it and you shall. He has a Valyrian steel sword already. He will bring you this one.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

Kinvara smiled and patted her shoulder.

Her visits to Asshai became more frequent, and she had found eggs there, vast caches of them. She had taken some of them, even knowing that she would not be able to hatch them.

“Why do you believe you cannot hatch them?” Kinvara asked her.

“They aren’t living eggs like my grandchildren were. It cost lives the last time. I can’t take lives for this.”

Kinvara smiled sadly. “Although your will was compromised and circumvented, you have taken more than enough lives, my queen. Enough to revive an army of dragons.”

Daenerys shuddered. “I will not use the deaths of innocents, deaths I caused, for my own gain.”

“Bran the Broken did.”

Daenerys sighed sadly. “He could have been Bran the Rebuilder.”

But now she began to study the vast clutches of eggs, wondering if indeed she could coax life from them. 

Daenerys found that she wanted desperately to learn healing magic. And this, they told her, was difficult. It was a reverse of reality. Much harder than coaxing fire which existed dormant everywhere, ready to combust.

That even raising the dead left the wounds behind. 

The difficulty of the thing made her all the more adamant to learn it. If she’d known how to do it at the time, she could have saved Ser Jorah. 

Quaithe had told her once that she must come to Asshai. Go go West, you must go East, she’d said.

Daenerys wished she’d listened. If she had, she might have saved Ser Jorah. If she had, she could have saved Missandei. She could have ignited Cersei and all the others on the wall of Kings Landing that day, and rescued Missandei.

She found that if she cut into her own skin, poured her blood, her magic was stronger.

“It’s Kings Blood, the blood of Old Valyria, the blood of the dragon you have in you. Blood that has died and lived again. It will make your magic alive.”

Daenerys decided it couldn’t hurt to try; she slashed her arm and poured her blood over the eggs, lighting a pyre beneath them. Much as she hated to use the deaths of innocents, it was not as if refusing to do so could bring them back.

She could feel the dragons calling to her as her first children had. She stepped into the pyre. 

She hadn’t truly believed this would wake them from their stone, but when morning came and the pyre was ashes, the cries of a dozen baby dragons split the air. 

Drogon and his children came close to meet their new family members. 

The day came that Kinvara told her Meereen would fall. The Masters had bought an army. Had trained new Unsullied. Astapor and Yunkai were theirs again, and they would take Meereen within a fortnight.

Daenerys was angry, sad, sick. Afraid. 

If she allowed Meereen to fall, her people would be put back into chains. Her legacy would be over. Perhaps Grey Worm and Daario, the last living men still loyal to her, would die.

“If I go back, I may do it all over again. Harm innocents.”

Kinvara studied her. “You were influenced that day. But even if you hadn’t been, even if it was all your own doing - “

“It was my doing,” she said fiercely. “I will not put the responsibility on my grief and pain. I did what I did.”

“Your grief and pain and betrayal; your exhaustion and rage and hunger; these made you easy to control.”

“No one controlled me.”

Kinvara smiled faintly, sadly. “One day we will speak of this again. Today we must speak of Meereen. This is your choice. You know what will happen if you don’t intercede.”

“How can I intercede?”

“You can start by visiting Vaes Dothrak. There are close to forty thousand men there. They have split again into separate khalasars, but they follow you in spirit. They will always. You united the khalasars into one. You brought them to the ends of the world. You fought the very dead with them, Death itself. Your mount is the greatest of all mounts. The Stallion who Mounts the World.”

“I was defeated.”

“You were tricked. But if you return, reborn, having once again defeated death, they will follow you. You must then take Volantis. The Tiger Cloaks and the Fiery Hand will join you. Do you not know? You have followers everywhere.”

Daenerys sighed, looking at the floor. “I’m afraid,” she confessed. “I was never afraid before. But if I harm innocents again, I cannot live with myself. And they see now, that they can use that against me. They can use innocents as a human sheild to cripple me.”

“No, my queen. Whatever you may think of what you did that day, however you condemn yourself, and I understand why you do, you must look at what it has done for you, and for all the lives that will be saved because of it.”

“How will lives be saved because of it? I became a monster.”

“Yes. You became a monster. Men fear monsters. Had you allowed Kings Landing to surrender, what would stop anyone from rebelling against you? All they would need is a lucky shot from their scorpions. If they fail, they could always surrender. They could always line their walls with innocents. 

“But now? Now, my queen, they believe you care not for innocents. They believe you will burn them where they stand, regardless of how many children they place between themselves and your fire. They believe you were unstoppable, but for the dagger that took your life. And when they see you, with that dagger at your hip, they will know you have defeated death. 

“For your spirit, for your heart, what you did was a disaster. But for your military reputation, what you did was tell your enemies that there is no weakness in you. That you will do what must be done. 

“You may also be unaware of the reputations of the other players in the game that day. 

The Golden Company was greatly feared. Twenty thousand men, known to smash any adversary.

The Silence was fearsome. From Asshai to Ibben we knew the name of that ship. Euron Greyjoy once said that when men see his sails, they pray. 

After years of these warriors building a name, making men tremble, you destroyed both in minutes. 

“And now, you won’t have to rain down fire into the city. You can instead select who you wish to burn, and they will burn.

“When the Dothraki surround the city, the slavers will fear, but the slaves will rejoice. And you will arrive expecting a fight. But oh, my queen, they will not fight you. When they see you on Drogon, all you will hear is the sound of dropped swords and kneeling men.”

Daenerys did not want to bet on that, but she did go to Vaes Dothrak to see if indeed the Dothraki would follow her again. 

Kinvara had given her clothing to wear, a dress much like those she’d worn long ago, but this one was red. 

When she dressed and stood before her mirror, she was concerned. There was a cutout between her breasts that showed their curve, and once she would have loved this. 

But the angry wound at her left breast was visible, red and ugly and unhealed.

“This is beautiful, but it shows my scar.”

“Yes, my queen. You want to show your scar. You want them to see it. You want all those who look upon it to know you took a dagger into your heart and now you stand alive, the dagger your own. You want them to know that anyone who rises against you will perish in fire and blood. But you, my queen will not.”

“And I’ll be seen as no more than a monster.”

“To your enemies you will be seen as no less than a monster. And a monster will have her way.” Kinvara stepped closer, resting her hand on Daenerys’ arm. “You want to help people. You can only help them from a position of strength. Sometimes strength is terrible.”

Daenerys shuddered as she heard her own words, the words she’d spoken to Jon Snow. 

She found that Kinvara was right about everything. 

When she appeared at Vaes Dothrak, the Dothraki were her bloodriders once again. 

When she had the Dothraki surround Volantis, then landed Drogon on the roof of one of their buildings, he roared and the nobles shivered. 

She met with their Triarchs and one of them, a man named Doniphos, told her he’d never wanted war with her at all. 

She commanded quite easily the end of slavery and the right of everyone to vote for triarchs, not only the nobles.

She would leave them to it, but visit to ensure the people were free.

And then she went to Astapor. Then Yunkai. Finally to Meereen, where she burned the army the Masters had bought. 

They’d known they were taking blood money, the blood of all those enslaved, and she could not allow herself to pity them any more than they’d pitied the innocents their victory would have condemned to slavery and death.

She saw that being able to ignite the masters without raining down fire was as valuable an asset as she’d thought it would be.

In under a fortnight, Volantis, Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen were free, and most of the masters were charred bones.

When she saw Grey Worm again, she embraced him, and thanked him for his unbending loyalty.

He told her of their attempt to protect Naath, how many men had died of the Butterfly Fever. 

She promised him they would protect Naath.

“Together,” she vowed. “For Missandei.”

“The fever,” he said, sadly. “We cannot”. 

“We will surround the island with ships. I will come and burn the slavers who attempt to pass the ships. We don’t have to be on the island to for this task. We will make them understand that attacking the people of Naath will mean certain death.”

She saw Daario Naharis, and she approached him to thank him. 

“I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done. In Westeros, I found only betrayal. But here...I found loyalty.”

“I thought you were dead,” Daario told her, and she could see on his face that this had cost him immeasurably. 

“I was,” she said. 

“They said you burned down the capitol.”

“I did.”

“I vowed I would avenge you, once I ensured your legacy.”

“I thank you for that. But I’ve taken revenge enough for many lifetimes. I want no further revenge. I want only peace and freedom. I’ve found freedom to be far better for me than a throne or crown.”

The people in her cities created again the councils, and each council voted her to be their leader. Try as she might to explain to them that she had no desire to rule, they chose her and could not be swayed. 

Daenerys figured that her absence would change their minds. 

She would not allow them to call her queen, but when they called her Mhysa, she had to accept the word, given in such love. It hurt her, to think of the children she’d lost.

Daario had been chosen to lead them in her absence. 

“They chose me because you left me to keep the peace,” he told her. “It was you they wanted”.

“Perhaps at first. But you’ve fought for them, beside them, for all these years. You’ve earned your place.”

“And you? I love you.”

Daenerys smiled at him sadly, tenderly.

She would never love again. The idea of allowing anyone to be that close to her again brought only anguish. 

He saw it in her face and his own smile grew sad. 

“We mourned you, you know. I mourned you. I thought it was a conqueror I loved. A dragon queen. But when I heard you were gone, it was a woman I mourned. A woman who was a warrior. A woman who told me she was a queen, not a butcher. Who swore she wouldn’t have another child’s bones dropped at her feet. A woman who teased me and challenged me. A woman with humor and grace and kindness. I know you don’t love me. But I will love you forever.”

Daenerys wanted books. She had never had a formal education, and she’d made many mistakes she would not have made had she been more educated. 

And she wanted more for the people she’d helped to gain their freedom. More than freedom from physical chains, she wanted them free from the chains created by a lifetime of oppression. 

She would never rule anyone again, she decided. Her actions in Kings Landing had made her unfit to rule.

But she would offer counsel. She would appear on occasion to discuss matters with her various councils and advise.

She thought more and more now about Valyria. She would dream of it. 

And Stygai. She knew she would have to go to Stygai. 

She had fought the dead, she had live dragons, she had become a monster.

What had she to fear in Stygai?

Demons, she thought, and her own demons were legion. 

But maybe that was her penance. To face her demons.

Before she could go to Valyria, before she could begin to dream of a true rebirth, she must go to Stygai.

To touch the light, you must pass beneath the shadow, Quaithe had told her.

And so to the shadow she must go.


	7. Year Four: Westeros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Four in Westeros

Year Four: Westeros 

Tyrion 

The weirwood trees were all over Bran’s kingdoms now, and the conflicts had turned into full blown war over the Reach. 

The lords had united with Willas Tyrell, who had been in the Arbor when Highgarden had been sacked. Dorne was supporting them.

Lord Willas had long ago renounced his claim so that his brother Loras might be the heir, keeping to himself among his books, his hawks and hounds and horses.

But he’d kept an eye on the political landscape, and with utter patience had planned the coup to take back his family’s home. 

Bronn was lucky to escape, but Tyrion could see that he was angry. 

The small council debated what to do. 

“Continued war will mean more bloodshed, and with Dorne backing the Reach, against King Bran’s underfed kingdoms, the kingdoms will lose,” Tyrion said. “On the other hand, if we lose the Reach, what will become of us? Much of our funds and almost all of our food have come from there.”

Bran arrived to the council chambers, and they began to assure him that they didn’t need the Reach, for fear people would start killing themselves. Too often this was happening now. 

Bran was impassive. 

“The Storm Lands and the River Lands will provide what they can,” he said. “In time we will war with them, and bring the rebelling kingdoms back to the fold. But for now we need to recover.”

Tyrion was relieved to hear that at least that Bran cared somewhat about the kingdom recovering, at last. He could see Davos felt the same. 

Essos no longer traded with Westeros at all. They had elected rulers who despised Westerosi.

Davos told Tyrion that he’d heard rumors that slavers had started to raid Westerosi shores to kidnap people, since it was not safe to do that in Essos anymore. 

“I heard that it’s suicide to do it in Naath now...that it’s being guarded by dragons,” Davos said.

This engendered a terrified silence.

“Dragons,” Tyrion repeated. “Plural.”

“As in more than one dragon in the world,” Davos said. “That’s the tale. And they’re guarding Naath.”

Tyrion had once enjoyed the intrigue of trying to slip through the plans and secrets of Kings Landing but now, not in the least. 

The king had been executing men for crimes they had not yet committed for years. He would explain coldly that it was necessary. That they would steal food and people will suffer. 

Tyrion hated what the realm had become. The people were hungry and afraid. The few who’d come to complain had then killed themselves in gruesome manners. Tearing out their eyes had been only the beginning and opening their own throats was a mercy. One man had brought his desperately thin children to show the king what was happening, then had set the children on fire, screaming the entire time. Then he’d dragged his dagger from his collarbone to his pelvis, spilling his guts all over the throne room floor. 

Nobody came to complain anymore.

Davos 

An old friend from Davos’ days of smuggling, a man in the same profession, had contacted him, asking him to meet at the wharf.

Brozi landed his ship, and approached Davos with a hearty handshake. 

“You look well fed,” Davos had said wryly and laughed. 

“Oh, yes. It’s a new world in Essos. You haven’t heard?” 

Brozi ordered some wine for both of them, threw down some gold to pay, then made a face as he drank it. 

“Trying to kill us,” he said, and pulled a jug from his bag, of Dornish red. “We’ll drink this. I’ll do a bit for charity, but drinking this grape piss is too much to ask, even for our King.”

“I thought you didn’t have a king,” Davos noted. “Or a queen, for that matter.”

“That was before.” 

“Before what?”

And he’d begun his story.

The King of Meereen had been elected. Technically not a king, but rather a ruler chosen by the people to oversee councils. A council of nobles, a small council, and a people’s council, chosen by all the people.

But they called him King. A bastard sellsword named Daario Naharis, with an army of two thousand mercenaries. He ruled over Meereen, Astapor and Yunkai, and now the entire region, and its surrounding waterway called Slaver’s Bay once upon a time, and now the Bay of Dragons, was simply called ‘Meereen’. 

And Meereen had expanded. The King had been chosen by the people because he’d been chosen by their Queen who had left Essos to sail for Westeros. And he hated it, Brozi added with a laugh. 

The King had planned to go to war with Westeros to avenge the Queen who’d died there. But something had happened in the interim, which Brozi just smiled about, but didn’t explain.

The king, or Lord Commander of the Councils, had named a Hand. His Hand had decided they would not, under any means, make war with Westeros.

Instead they would focus on Essos, and that’s what they did. Meereen had expanded its position, after taking Volantis. The people there had been unhappy, the slaves were suffering and the King’s Hand had some kind of special relationship with the Red Priests and Priestesses there. 

“And he just...took it?” Davos had asked disbelieving.

“She,” Brozi corrected with that same smile. “And yes, she did. She is fearsome. Nobody wishes to make war with her.”

Pirates had attacked the cities for years, and the King had decided this would have to end. The Hand of the King had made it her special project and within three moons she’d brought them to heel.

King Daario had planned to execute them but the Hand had convinced him to offer them instead, a pardon in exchange for becoming Meereen’s fleet. When word spread that the fiercest of pirates had become the Meereenese fleet, and that their earnings were in fact far higher than plunder had yielded, most of the smugglers joined as well.

“And it helped of course, the stories about Silence,” Brozi added, drinking. 

Davos frowned at that.

What had their King’s Hand had to do with the Silence? Davos knew the reputation of Euron Greyjoy’s ship was something terrible, all along Asshai, Yi Ti, the Jade Sea and the coast of Essos, but the ship and its fleet had been destroyed in minutes by Daenerys Targaryen and her dragon.

The kingdom of Meereen was still expanding, and had banned slavery in all its forms. 

They had begun to focus on other means of commerce, and agriculture, textiles, crafts and music had quickly moved into its place.

“Of course our King despises Westeros, so his Hand had to do some fancy convincing, but I’ve brought a gift, for the people of Kings Landing and only Kings Landing.”

“Gift?” Davos echoed as if that word had been the only one to register. 

“Food, wood and stone for building, fabrics. You’re rebuilding the city, yes? I was sent here with a gift to help you do so, and to feed and clothe your people as you do.”

The gifts were not lavish by nature; no gold or silver, no jewels or silks. The only luxury was a small trove of wine, maybe six jugs. “For the Hand of the King,” Brozi had said. 

“Wine for the Hand of the King?” Davos has said in surprise. 

“Our King’s Hand said that yours had a mind once that was the greatest asset in all of Westeros. That that mind runs on wine, and is useless without it.”

“Can’t argue that,” Davos responded, shaking his head. 

The extravagance of these gifts lay in their volume. Salted meats, dried fruits, medicines, enough food to provide for all of Kings Landing for several moons. 

“The provisions are only for the capitol. Of course once I set sail, you may do as you wish, but the King has no desire to offer any assistance at all to any of Westeros. If he finds that the rest of Westeros is gaining any benefit, it’s hard to say if his Hand will be able to convince him to continue helping.”

Davos nodded thoughtfully. “I’m curious if your King hates Westeros, why he would help us at all, but I certainly don’t want to turn away a gift,” he said with a faint smile.

“It’s his Hand. She feels beholden.” But there was no further explanation. 

Davos had presented the gifts to Bran and explained what his old friend had told him. Tyrion had delighted in the wine, but became suspicious when he saw that it included Dornish red and Arbor Gold. He wondered if he should be drinking something that had clearly been provided by enemies. 

“If Meereen wanted to kill us they could do so fairly easily,” Bran had said, and though it was meant to set their minds at ease, it didn’t. “We may have to act at some point.”

Tyrion had eventually relented and started on the wine. There was no poison in anything that had been sent, and the people of the capitol at least had been fed.

Davos had met with his friend every few moons after, and he had come to enjoy the meetings, not only for the supplies that were provided and so desperately needed, but for the stories of the land at the other side of the Narrow Sea.

How marvelous in the cold snows and unrelenting poverty, to hear of a land that was always warm, and growing wealthier by the moon. To hear that no land almost anywhere in Essos allowed slavery anymore. 

That there was indeed a council chosen by every person of age on the continent’s known cities.

“But now the queen wants - “ 

“Queen? I thought she was the Hand?”

“Yes. Well, she is...she’s really just an advisor... In any event, she’s saying now that the people who were enslaved might feel chained to the work they’ve always done, because they’ve never been allowed to learn anything else.”

“Well, that’s people everywhere, isn’t it?”

Brozi shrugged. “Maybe. She thinks if people are exposed to other ideas for how to make a living, they may choose something else.”

“And how does she intend to do this?” 

“Books.”

“Books?” 

“That’s right. Wants them so much that she’s convinced the king to allow trade with Westeros for books. She’ll pay a flexible price depending on the book.”

Davos had presented this to the King and his small council. 

“Books,” Bronn had said mockingly. “They’ll ignore us for moons and then buy books from us.”

“Most of the people have burned their books if they had any, to keep warm,” Brienne said grimly. 

“Highgarden has a whole library,” Bronn offered. “Not that I can get over to it,” he added bitterly.

“Why can’t their King ask the Citadel?” Sam asked.

“King Daario isn’t involved with the plan, it’s all his advisor’s doing. She’s his Hand or something like that, and she wants libraries all over Essos. She doesn’t like the Citadel’s methods, but she’s considering an attempt to come to an understanding with them.”

“Libraries,” Tyrion repeated, intrigued. “You said...King Daario?” 

“That’s his name. Daario Naharis. He was a sellsword before.”

“I know him,” Tyrion said thoughtfully. “And you’re certain he doesn’t want to make war with us?” 

“The man’s a friend of yours, and you think he’ll make war with us?” Bronn asked, laughing. 

“He wasn’t exactly a friend. And he was in love with Daenerys.” 

The room fell silent for a moment, digesting this, and Davos pressed on.

“He was going to make war with us, my friend said. His Hand talked him out of it.”

“Who is his Hand?” Bronn demanded.

“I don’t know her name, but she obviously commands his attention.”

The next few weeks were full of activity as King Bran sent word out for people to gather their books. 

And now, Davos sat, drinking his wine that Brozi had called ‘grape piss’, and waited. He had books with him, many many books gathered from the libraries of the great houses. 

He heard steps approaching, and he turned, but it wasn’t Brozi. It was Tyrion Lannister.

“I had to come,” he explained. “I’m sad about the loss of our books, and I wanted to meet the man who’s taking them.” 

“They left the library at Kings Landing.” 

“I’ve read most of those books.” He said, motioning for the bartender to bring him some wine as well. “And I’ve been enjoying this project immensely, as the books had to pass through us, and it’s given me an opportunity to read quite a bit. But now the books will be gone.”

“I’m sure the project is far from over,” Davos assured him. “You will have much more reading to do before this is done.”

Brozi stepped into the inn then, and dropped gold on the bar. By now the innkeeper knew to hand him an empty cup. He approached the table and poured wine from his own jug into his cup. 

“This is-“ Davos began, and Brozi cut him off.

“You must be Tyrion Lannister,” he bellowed in excitement. “Well it’s good to meet you at last.”

“Likewise,” Tyrion said. “And please extend my gratitude to your King’s Hand for the wine.”

Name laughed heartily. “She said your mind is no good without wine, and it’s the only chance to save Westeros from ruin.”

“I wouldn’t think your King’s Hand knew me so well. Did she mention where we had met?” 

“I would suppose, in Essos.” 

“How did she say she knew me?”

Brozi poured from his jug to refill the cups in front of Davos and Tyrion. 

“She said she never really knew you at all,” Brozi said brusquely, then went on. “So you have books for me, yes?”

“We do,” Davos said, “they are in coaches outside.” 

“I’ll spend the evening and look over them, and we can talk about a price.” 

“And her plan with the books is to build libraries.” 

“Yes. She wants to have all the people learn how to read. She’s ambitious, but when she has her mind set on a thing you can wager she’ll do it. Or die trying.” Brozi laughed at this and poured more wine. “Once she does that, she wants to have...” he hesitated as if he himself had trouble understanding it. “It’s hard to explain. The scope of the thing she wants to do is staggering, at least in Essos. It’s a big idea for us, but I wonder if she’s ever had a small idea in her entire life.” He laughed again. 

“She wants to set up these centers where the children will go to learn reading and history and all that, and then when they’re older, have people come in and tell them about their work. And then a big center in Meereen for adults to get...apprenticeships, would be the best way to describe it. Maybe. A place where people can go to learn history, or numbers, or music, or fishing or ship building, or medicine, or farming. Whatever they like. If they like it enough but it’s not something that will give them work, like history, they can teach it to other people at the center, and that will be their work. She thinks they’ll be happier if they choose what they want to do. Something like your Citadel, but for women as well as men, and for a wider range of subjects. Nobody’s going to the Citadel to learn how to fish.” He gave another boisterous laugh.

“If that’s not enough, she’s got some ideas about the way we have our water set up. She saw Sweetwater River on a trip to Braavos and now wants to try something like that in Meereen.” He shook his head, still smiling. “That little Queen always has something going in that head of hers.”

Davos was a little dazed by this, and glanced at Tyrion who was studying Brozi. 

“What’s her name?” 

Brozi’s face lost some of its laughter, but a peaceable smile remained. “You certainly seem very interested in our King’s Hand.”

“What’s not to find interesting? She is sending us donations, she is building centers of learning, it sounds like she’ll be building aqueducts next. Your people are well fed, and happy. Of course I’m interested.” 

Brozi nodded, and gave Tyrion a look that was almost pity.

“Of course. Of course you would find her interesting. From far away.” He patted his shoulder. “Well, I’m going to get some sleep. Have to go through all those books tomorrow, best to get an early start.” 

The books that Westeros had gathered and sold had brought in enough gold to make a difference, or at least it would have made a difference if it hadn’t been winter, if the land hadn’t been salted and scorched over a decade of constant and unremitting war.

What to buy with gold when food, supplies, medicine, everything was scarce? When so few other lands would trade with them? 

Davos was concerned about Tyrion. He’d been often lost in his own thoughts since his conversation with Brozi. Davos wasn’t sure if it was sadness over the loss of the books, or a kind of encompassing depression that the people were perishing here in hunger and sickness and ignorance and there was nothing they could do about it. 

Davos had come early for the council meeting so he could catch a few minutes with him. Tyrion was always there early. He liked to be sure everything was in order before the king arrived. 

“You’ve been pensive since you met Brozi.”

“Yes,” Tyrion said heavily. “I must say I enjoyed speaking with him. It’s wonderful to imagine a city where learning and prosperity are common.” 

“It’s more than a city,” Davos noted. “It’s four cities and expanding.” 

“I was in Essos. It wasn’t that long ago. But it feels like a lifetime. It wasn’t wealthy then, there were poor everywhere.” 

Davos nodded thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t advise going back. Not with a King who hates Westerosi.”

Tyrion nodded. “I’ve been trying to figure out how I know his Hand. His Queen. Whatever she is.”

“You may have met her in passing. You were the Hand of the Queen over there. Met a lot of people you’ve forgotten but who remember you.” 

“You know...I had a ridiculous thought...” he broke off and shook his head. 

“What did you think?” 

Tyrion was looking down at the table in front of him. “It’s ridiculous.” 

“You mentioned that. But our king isn’t here yet, and I’ve heard and seen plenty of ridiculous in my life.”

“Daario Naharis was in love with Daenerys Targaryen.” 

“Seems to have been a common enough affliction,” Davos observed, his chest hurting as he thought about Jon Snow.

“Sam had said Drogon was last seen flying towards Volantis. King Bran verified it. That’s where he found him and then lost him again. Where he was hidden by shadowbinders. I wondered if Drogon brought Daenerys there.” 

“You think he brought her to a Red Woman.”

“I said I wondered if he had, not that I thought it,” Tyrion clarified tensely. “And not just any Red Woman. Kinvara was the High Priestess of the Red Temple in Volantis, and was a follower of Daenerys. I understand they have certain powers”. 

“Indeed, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. What changed your mind?” 

“Daenerys...” Tyrion almost smiled. “She would never be content with being a Hand, or an advisor.”

“I can’t tell if you’re relieved or disappointed,” Davos said. 

“Both, I think. Relieved because I certainly wouldn’t want her coming back here to burn what’s left. Disappointed because...it would be good, wouldn’t it? To think of her alive somewhere, the person she set out to be when I first met her. I knew she was...dangerous. Jaime died in her firestorm. I couldn’t forgive her for that. I was revolted by what she did. But...I grieve for her, too.” Tyrion drank his wine, deeply. “I remember when I met her. Her plans. I loved her. I believed in her. She said she would leave the world better than she’d found it.”

“In a way, she did,” Davos said. 

“Yes. I suppose In a way, she did.”

New arrivals of books came every day now. Davos wondered if this Hand would consider paying for the books in food or supplies, rather than gold. 

Davos knew that Tyrion was sad to see their kingdoms so poor, so desperate, that they were willing to part with all their books so readily. 

Samwell Tarly agreed with him, and as the the council meeting came together, it erupted into an argument. 

The argument over the value of books as opposed to gold was a depressing one. 

Samwell was arguing that books were their stories, their knowledge, their understanding of the world. Their past and their future. 

“Well, gold is now,” Bronn stated. “And what we need now is food. Supplies. Wine. Women. Life. What good is it to have a collection of scratchings into paper and scrolls when people are starving?”

“But if we survive,” Sam said, “what will be left of us if we’ve sold all our stories, our history, all the information we’ve carefully built over centuries?”

“Another century of living, because we didn’t decide to save a bunch of words on paper and parchment instead of us?” Bronn shot back.

“I can’t see much in the east, only times long past,” Bran said softly. “But what need have we for books? Yes, gather all the books. From all the kingdoms.”

Tyrion and Davos were almost sorry they had told him, because an official order from the king had gone out over the Four Kingdoms to gather all the books, and soon the continent would be left with none.

They’d also sent a raven to Sansa. Bran felt like she might appreciate the opportunity. 

She met with Tyrion and Davos, her cart loaded with the books, and she was emaciated now, and heavy with sadness that so many had died.

She confirmed that slavers would come and raid the North, so their few people had to fear, as many had disappeared.

She was also sad that they must part with all their books. They’d scoured Castle Black for those books too, what was left of them. Most of the North had burned them for kindling anyway.

“Did you see Jon?” Davos asked. “At Castle Black?” 

“No,” she said. “He was out ranging.”

Tyrion told Davos that he had a bad feeling about the books.

He remembered what he said long ago about Bran, and stories.

Tyrion shared this thought with Bran, and Davos wondered if it would help. 

“If they want the stories they can come to me,” Bran assured him.

Davos wondered if Tyrion realized that Bran would now hold a monopoly on all the stories of Westeros. He felt sick.

“Your Grace, I am glad of that, but one day you will be gone and what then?” Tyrion asked.

“Don’t worry about that, Lord Tyrion. Bran Stark will be gone one day, it’s true. But the Three Eyed Raven is immortal.”

Davos was already nauseated; if he could guess Tyrion’s thoughts it would be, “what the fuck have I done”.

They walked out to the snowy grounds of the Keep, and saw Brienne with little Cat and Jaime.

Jaime was the spit and image of his father.

Cat resembled Cersei but had Brienne’s bright blonde hair and blue eyes.

Tyrion looked at her sadly. 

“All the books,” she said in despair. “My children will grow up in a world with no books, a world of war and famine and sickness and the ever present threat of slavers, and Dothraki raiders that no one can stop, and a king who doesn’t care and will tell their stories as he sees fit.”

“We may have made a mistake that day,” Tyrion said heavily.

Davos could see that Brienne wanted to be hopeful that the son of the woman she had pledged herself to, would one day prove to be a great king.

“What were we left with?” She murmured sadly.

Then a raven landed above them, and they looked at each other, and immediately started talking about how lovely the weirwoods are.

“Their leaves look like blood,” little Jaime said, and Davos could only look at Brienne and Tyrion. 

Gendry

Gendry had been excited on the night he’d been named Gendry Baratheon and given Storms End.

He figured that night was the last night he could truly say he was happy. 

He’d spent the night before fighting dead things with everyone else, and Arya had never been far from his mind. He’d feared for her more than for his own life. She was small, he kept thinking. He knew she was strong but she could be overrun.

The moment that all the dead dropped to the ground, lifeless, great cheers had gone up everywhere, but Gendry could only think of her.

Had she been killed? Crushed under these nightmare wights?

And then he’d heard: it had been Arya, his Arya, who killed their King. 

At the celebration afterwards, he’d been annoyed that there were not more toasts to her, but of course she wasn’t even there. 

That dragon queen toasted Arya, and Gendry had felt somewhat mollified. At least someone appreciates her, he thought angrily, appreciates the magnitude of what she’d done. 

Arya hadn’t even come to fight this enemy. She’d come to see her family. She’d saved all of humanity on her visit home. 

Gendry had been overwhelmed by his pride in her. He had known he couldn’t truly make her an offer, for all her protestations that she wasn’t a lady. 

She was a lady, by birth, and he was a bastard smith from Flea Bottom.

And then, a miracle.

The dragon queen had called him out, she knew he was Robert Baratheon’s son.

He admitted to himself that in that moment he’d been afraid. Hadn’t his father usurped her father’s throne? 

Hadn’t he spent years trying to find her and kill her? 

House Baratheon was dead, himself the only living reminder of the family that had destroyed hers.

And as Robert Baratheon’s last living son, his existence was a threat to her claim to the throne. 

He’d expected her to execute him.

But she had instead named him Lord Gendry Baratheon, restored his House, gave him the Stormlands.

He hadn’t thought about what the responsibilities would be, hadn’t thought about anything except Arya.

He found her outside, throwing knives, and told her the news, dropped to one knee before her and asked her to be his wife, his lady.

She went to her own knees, and ever so gently, kindly, refused him.

The next few days he’d sat wondering if there was a way to convince her.

Then the queen who’d legitimized him burned down Kings Landing and was assassinated.

Gendry was assured that his lordship would be upheld, but when he arrived at Storms End, people had already taken it.

And the next few moons were a matter of taking back the castle, and then trying to feed everyone. The Storm Lands had been shattered by the autumn storms that had given them their name, winter had held it in its inexorable grip, and war had destroyed homes, if not directly, by the crumbling of a system that had kept bandits and kings men from pillage and wanton destruction.

And then people started getting sick. He couldn’t help them, he could only offer what little aid had trickled from the ruined capitol. 

When he met with the other lords and ladies, he understood that they did not like him. They knew his lineage and felt that his two uncles had started the wars that had destroyed the continent. They knew he was a bastard and, while they never mentioned it directly, they would refer to their pure bloodlines and trueborn children. 

Davos had kindly taken the time to teach him to read, and Bronn, the former Lord of Highgarden, had laughed at that. He couldn’t read much either, but didn’t care to impress the lords and ladies.

Gendry didn’t know a lot about money, but he suspected that Bronn was utterly incompetent for the position of Master of Coin and he wondered why Tyrion Lannister had chosen him.

He hated all of it. 

He should have sailed with Arya.

Yara 

Yara knew that Essosi ships were raiding the mainland. She’d heard that there were dragons - more than one dragon - who were guarding Naath.

Too many stories had traveled to her about Essos that made her curious. But when she heard that the large black dragon had appeared in Volantis with the Dothraki, she knew it had to be more than a coincidence. 

Yara hadn’t known Daenerys Targaryen well. But she was a fellow warrior queen. She had killed Uncle Euron. Freed the Iron Islands from him, freed Westeros from Cersei, helped free the North from the Night King. And in exchange she’d been given only loss, betrayal, derision and a dagger to the heart. 

She had deserved better. 

Westeros had become little more than a ruin, and Yara didn’t care. 

But this...this, she cared about. The rumors that Daenerys might be alive. 

Yara was going to Essos. She readied her ship. She had to know. If it was true, she had to lay her eyes again on the silver haired queen and thank her for all she had done, tell her that there were those, few though they were, who recognized and appreciated her sacrifices and her work. Daenerys deserved that much at least.


	8. Year Four: Essos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Four in Essos

Year Four: Essos 

Jon 

Essos was hot, sultry, the air by turns dry and burning, or wet and heavy. Ghost whined softly but miserably beside him, and he could have sworn Tormund whined with him. 

Back in the North, Jon had made his way from the cave to Hardhome first. With Dark Sister in its sheath at his hip, Longclaw at the other hip, he’d trudged through the snow to the settlement he’d helped rebuild.

It would be hard to say the place was thriving, cold as it was. But these were people of the true North. For them the cold was as natural as the sky above and the earth below. 

Hunting and fishing provided food and oil and furs. The branches of weirwoods provided bows and reinforced their ships. 

Perhaps there was one thing Jon had done in his life that was good, he mused. He had helped them rebuild their lives.

Jon had only stopped there to say his goodbyes. Tormund had been a good friend to him. He’d also wanted to ask Tormund to keep Ghost. The wolf belonged in the North and in truth, Jon had no idea if he would ever return to the shores of Westeros. He thought he might be killed for desertion before even leaving, but he had to try.

He’d explained this to Tormund, who had looked at him with a hard compassion that made Jon want to be angry, but he couldn’t find it in him.

Tormund had agreed that Jon was likely to get himself killed. And so, Tormund had insisted on joining him.

They’d taken one of the ships and a few men, and made the trip across the Narrow Sea.

They’d met with some resistance trying to dock; the Essosi people seemed to despise them. 

He’d explained that he’d only come to visit an old dear friend and drop off a gift. The men at the wharf regarded them suspiciously, and told them they had four days, and if they weren’t ready to leave they would burn the ship and take them prisoner.

Jon wished he knew where Drogon had taken Daenerys’ body. He would have liked to lay the sword beside her. 

“Gonna get yourself and the rest of us killed, little crow,” Tormund told him. 

Jon sighed. Getting himself killed was one thing; getting the free folk who had joined him on this journey killed was something else entirely, and he quickened his step. 

Tyrion had told him, on that terrible day, that Daenerys had ‘liberated Slavers Bay, and she liberated Kings Landing, and would go on liberating”; Jon had assumed by the little man’s words that Daenerys had burned the cities as she had Kings Landing.

But this city didn’t look as if it had been burnt. In fact, it was bustling and prosperous, and it wasn’t even called Slavers Bay. It was the Bay of Dragons now, and it smelled significantly better than Kings Landing had. 

The people looked well fed and happy, even prosperous if not wealthy. 

He didn’t know where to begin, to find a place to leave the sword. Had this been a mistake? 

He’d stopped having the dreams of trees with bleeding eyes once they’d set sail, but sometimes he would hear their voices.

You have forsaken your fire. 

You are in default.

He and Tormund walked through the city and Jon could feel himself getting angry. 

She did liberate this city, he thought, and his hands clenched into fists. Tyrion had fucking manipulated him, worse than he’d thought. But it was his own fault, because he’d believed him. He hadn’t even asked Daenerys about it. 

“Any chance we might stop for a drink?” Tormund asked. Jon glanced at him. 

His friend was sweating, his face red. 

“Not yet. I’m sorry, but we only have a few days, and I have to find a place to...” he broke off as they approached the city’s center, and he could not say how long he stood, staring; there, at the middle of the plaza, stood a statue.

A statue of Daenerys, and her three dragons. 

At its base, Jon could see candles, flowers, little pots of perfumed oils. Bottles of wine, gold and silver coins, chunks of jade and amber and obsidian. 

He saw a few people walk over to it, touch its base, leave a gift. They would murmur some words, then walk on. 

They love her here, Jon thought, his heart heavy. 

He walked toward the statue, staring up at its face; her face, carved into the stone.

Gods, he missed her. 

He bent down to lay Dark Sister at her feet. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry, Dany.”

His hands were shaking. He stood, and turned to see a woman, and for a moment he thought it was Melisandre; she wore the same kind of long red dress, even the same necklace.

“My name is Kinvara,” she said, and her voice held an infinite compassion.

He nodded. “I’m - “

“I know who you are, my king.”

“I’m not a king,” he told her, and she smiled sadly. 

“You are so like one another,” she said with a sigh. “You have forsaken your fire.”

A chill ran down his back. “Oh? And I suppose now you’ll tell me I’m in default,” he snapped.

“You are. You both are.” 

“Both?” 

“Truly, it’s not such a terrible thing. You have been rebuilding. It takes time to mend things that have been so badly broken. 

“But you have in you the blood of the First Men, and the blood of old Valyria. She has in her an almost unbroken line that will never come again in such a pure form. You are the first of your kind, and she is the last of hers. The child would have been the one to set it all right. But I’ve seen in the flames, you will - “

“Child?” Jon interrupted, and he felt suddenly as if the ground beneath him tilted. “There was a child?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save her,” Kinvara said, sadly. 

“I should have saved her,” Jon said bitterly.

“I meant the child. I couldn’t bring back the child. It was too long, too far. We feared we would not be able to bring back the queen. But her heat kept her preserved, so I - “

Jon took a step toward her. “The queen? You mean Daenerys. You brought back Daenerys.”

Kinvara smiled again. “Yes, my king. Our queen lives.”

“Where is she?” Jon demanded. 

“She is in a place I would not advise you to go. You aren’t ready for the shadow, and she isn’t ready to see you.”

“I need to see her,” Jon said urgently. 

“It’s not yet time. I’m sorry. She hasn’t forgiven you. Not for your betrayal, not for her murder, not for the loss of the babe. You and she were manipulated - “

“Aye, I’m aware we were manipulated. Tyrion said she liberated Slaver’s Bay - “

“Except she truly did liberate us here, and it’s not Slaver’s Bay anymore. Your imp should have remembered she named it the Bay of Dragons, but I suppose he was too intent on manipulating you. But that’s not the only manipulation I speak of, my king. All will come to the light before long. You will see our queen again. And the road to forgiveness will be long. For both of you. But sometimes different roads lead to the same castle.”

Jon remembered his words to Arya, so long ago.

“If you see her, please tell her I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I regretted it as soon as I did it. And everything else before...I left her, after all she - “

“I know. You were both broken. That’s how he got his hands wedged in. It was harder with you, because you had been dead. Death protected you. He can’t push you as he did her, he had to push those around you.”

“Who?”

“The Three Eyed Raven.”

“My brother? You think my brother - “

“Your brother is no more. You read the words of the last man whose body became a host. He knew. He knew he would be lost if he allowed the Old One to enter him. Your brother was young, he was not ready, and he knew not the cost.”

Jon felt nauseated. “My brother - “

“He’s not your brother anymore. He told you himself. He’s not Bran Stark. It’s hard to see whether he died in that cave, or if he exists somewhere deep within and is wanting to be free. But the man called king is not your brother. You thought the enemy of the Great Other must be your ally. Of course you did. You thought he was your brother. But he too is a Great Other. He orchestrated all.”

Now Jon was angry. “If that’s true, he must be fought. Defeated.”

“Yes, Aegon of House Targaryen, sixth of your name. He must be fought and defeated. But you are not yet ready. You have forsaken your fire. You are in default of your destiny. You have become stone, as has she. You are dragons, and you will awaken from this stone. But that day is not today.” 

“Where is she?” Jon repeated.

“She is in a place you cannot go, as I’ve told you, my king. Not yet. You are on different roads, and the day you find yourselves led to the same castle, you will fight beside each other. And never will to betray each other again. Or...it will all be over. That choice will be yours and hers.

“I know you wish to look around. To see what she’s done here. May I advise, have your ship dock in Volantis, rather than Meereen. They don’t trust Westerosi either, but I can promise your safety there. We in the temple know what you did. We know that if it were not for your actions, and hers, the night would still cover the world.”

“Dark and full of terrors,” Jon muttered, and she smiled.

“Yes. Dock in Volantis. Look around. See the world our queen has made. I will make sure she gets the gift you’ve left her.”

The heat had become oppressive, now that the object of Jon’s journey had been accomplished, and Tormund was cursing under his breath. 

They had indeed taken a look around the cities, and would be boarding their ship in the morning, then sailing back to Westeros. Back to the cold winds and vast stretches of snowbound plains they knew and called home.

Jon felt numb, and he knew the numbness would pass. And when it did, the anguish would swallow him. He was almost welcoming it. What he feared was the rage. He could already feel it’s flames licking at him, ready to ignite his entire being. He had respected Tyrion, had liked him and believed him to be a good man. 

Now he knew that the man had manipulated him, lied to him. 

But that was only one thing, one factor in all the others that had led to the horrors that had occurred.

He could not lay it all at Tyrion’s feet. Too much of it laid at his own feet. 

He could of course lay it still at Daenerys’ feet, couldn’t he? But she had died for her part. And everyone else’s, too.

And if Kinvara was telling the truth...he shuddered. 

Daenerys had been manipulated; pushed, she’d said. 

Daenerys had also been carrying his child. And he’d killed her, and the child as well. 

Dany was alive somewhere, if Kinvara was to be believed, but the babe...he shook the thought out of his mind. He barely had the strength to carry what already laid upon him. To think he’d murdered his own child, all because he couldn’t give its mother more than mere minutes, before sliding his dagger into her heart.

The Long Bridge of Volantis had been visible to them for some time, and as they approached, Jon saw it was almost a city unto itself. 

Lighted shops lined the road, and the bustling and noise scratched against his already frayed nerves. 

He had promised Tormund they would stop for a drink or two, and he would keep that promise.

There were brothels more than inns, but Jon figured they could still have a drink there, so they entered and sat at a table in the corner.

Jon regretted the decision almost immediately.  
At least three women had dyed and styled their hair to emulate Daenerys. He had seen women doing so when they’d first arrived, but here, these women were dressed for the pleasures of clients, and their clothing left little if anything to the imagination.

Tormund was watching him now, and he bristled at the pity in his friend’s eyes. 

Before he could offer a weak protest, two men began shouting, then swinging at each other, at the other side of the room and then other men joined in.

Some of the women screamed, others calmly moved back as if they’d seen this before.  
Jon stood as if to stop these men from killing each other in the chaos that erupted, and Tormund rested his hand on his arm.

“This isn’t our fight, little crow,” Tormund said warningly. 

He stood torn for a moment, silently debating whether seeing men about to spill blood made him responsible for it, when another man stood suddenly, walking purposefully into the melee. 

“Enough,” he bellowed, and the men immediately fell away from each other, some bowing, as if he were a king.

The man smiled in frustrated amusement at that. 

“I’m not a Triarch here, you know that, right?” 

The men nodded in apparent deference, and began to explain at once what had started the fight.

“I don’t really care,” he told them, and started to turn away from their explanations, until one man had stated that the one who had begun the fight was too drunk, too often, since his wife had died. His expression changed then, to one of compassion.

He began to speak softly to the man who had begun the fight, and Jon could not make out what he was saying. He sat by the man and listened to him as he wept and raged.

From the voices around him, Jon surmised that the man’s name was Daario and he held no official position here in Volantis, yet he commanded a fierce level of respect.

Daario finished speaking to the man, handed him some coin and watched him leave with his friend. 

As Daario crossed the room back to his table, his eyes caught Jon’s. They grew immediately cold, taking in his and Tormund’s attire, and approached their table.

“Westerosi,” he said and in his voice Jon heard a revulsion and rage that took him off guard.

“Aye, we’re from Westeros,” Jon said.

“Why are you here?” He demanded.

Jon opened his mouth to answer, but Tormund spoke over him.

“My friend here got his heart broken. We decided to take a trip, a little change, thought it’d do him some good. But he’s still as gloomy as ever,” he laughed boisterously, slapping Jon’s back.

“What are your names?” Daario asked, still suspicious. 

Again, Jon moved to speak and Tormund answered loudly, cutting him off.

“This is Crow, and I’m Tor,” Tormund said, and Jon remembered his earlier warning. Too many Essosi would be happy to murder him to avenge their fallen queen.

“And is your friend Crow a mute?” Daario asked. He pulled up a chair and sat down, to Jon’s chagrin.

“I’m not a mute,” Jon said curtly.

“What are your family names?”

“We don’t have family names,” Tormund said, and Jon knew his distaste was genuine.

“I don’t like Westerosi,” Daario said, ordering a jug of wine from a passing woman. “I don’t trust a one of you.”

“Can’t argue there,” Tormund said amiably. “We don’t get along much with the rest of the place either.”

“How long will you be here?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow.”

Daario seemed somewhat satisfied with that, though not enough to leave their table. 

The wine arrived and Daario poured himself some, then pushed the jug toward the two men in invitation.

“I’m leaving here myself in a few days,” Daario went on. Jon couldn’t tell if the man was unaware that his presence was not welcome, or if he just didn’t care. “I just need to make sure everything is running as it should.”

“You’re some kind of king here?” Tormund asked him.

Daario laughed. “We don’t have kings. We have Triarchs in Volantis, we have councils in the Bay of Dragons. No kings.”

“You said you’re not a Triarch,” Jon said, unwilling really to converse but curious despite himself.

“I’m not. I’m the captain of a sellsword company,” he said. “I’m no more than a bastard sellsword who ended up fighting on the right side of history, and now they treat me like a king.”

Jon frowned. His situation was similar, wasn’t it? But he’d changed positions and ended up on the wrong side, he thought.

“So how’d you get your heart broken?” Daario asked him. 

“I don’t really like to discuss it.”

“Well I don’t really like Westerosi in the cities I’m sworn to protect. You’re all lying snakes. You use people until there’s nothing left of them and then destroy them. You have no honor. Not one of you. I have no reason to trust you.”

Jon sighed. “I made a mistake,” he said. That sounded weak to him. He remembered Mance, how he’d seen through Jon’s lie to him; he remembered a lie must have enough truth in it, to sound like the whole truth. 

But it wasn’t a lie, was it? He had made a mistake. Many mistakes.

“Love is the death of duty,” Jon said finally.

Daario laughed. “You’re a dour lot, aren’t you?”

“We are,” Tormund said, laughing as well. 

Daario sat with them as they drank, and Jon was irritated. 

“I don’t know if I believe in duty,” Daario ruminated. “I believe in living my life. If I have a duty, it’s to love. So I’d never have that conflict.”

“What if your love did something that was unforgivable?”

“There’s nothing she could do that I wouldn’t forgive. And she has a temper. But I love her. I love her entirety, not just her light, but her darkness, too.”

Jon winced. 

Her darkness, too.

“Maybe your love’s darkness isn’t like my love’s darkness,” he said, remembering a broken street lined with charred corpses.

But if she were pushed, as Kinvara said...

Daario laughed again. “Her darkness isn’t like anyone else’s, I’ll give you that.”

“How long are you together?” Tormund asked Daario. 

“We aren’t. She doesn’t love me.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon said. 

Daario shrugged. “I’ve known it for years. Listen. I believe you, I believe your story. You have that broken heart look about you. There’s something you’re not telling me, but that’s your life. I’m going to have some men watch you. Just to be sure. I understand you Westerosi can seem honest while lying through your teeth. I’ll buy your next pitcher and you can stay the evening. But tomorrow you need to be gone.”

“We will be,” Tormund jumped in. “This place is too damn hot for us.”

Jon was glad when the man left. He wanted to think again of what Kinvara had told him.

Somewhere, Daenerys lived. What was she doing? Was she happy? But how could she be happy? 

He wanted to find her. To tell her he loved her, that he regretted everything he had done, everything he had failed to do. Let her kill him if that’s what she wanted. She deserved her justice.

But that would be selfish. She couldn’t possibly want to see him. 

The next morning, he got on the ship to go back to Westeros. He felt empty. He’d murdered her, and now she was alive; but he’d murdered their child, too. There could be no forgiveness for that. He remembered hanging the men - even Ollie, who was no man but only a boy - who had stabbed him. How could she ever forgive him? 

Daenerys 

Stygai was dead. 

Dark from the shadows of high mountains on either side, the Land was barely lighter in daytime than at night. 

Daenerys did not fear dark, she thought maybe dark was her place now.

She’d brought her sword with her, which Kinvara had told her was a temporary sword. “The one you were meant to wield is being brought to you as we speak,” she’d said cryptically. 

Daenerys had also brought her dagger.

But the dead...all around her was ruin. Dead. What could a sword do against them?

What she had not prepared for, could not prepare for, was her own dead. 

She saw her Dothraki, who she’d led to their deaths. She was barely able to fight the remorse that almost crushed her. She saw Jorah, bleeding from his wounds, looking at her sadly.

Missandei. Beautiful, wise Missandei, holding her head in her hands as her decapitated form stood before her. 

Daenerys fell to her knees. 

“I’m sorry. I should have kept you safe. I should have bent the knee to Cersei to save you. I should have never set foot in Westeros.”

She was weeping, and the weight on her shoulders was heavy, so heavy...it pressed on her, and she realized that her knees were sinking into the ghost grass below her.

It’s not Missandei, she realized. The demons here were those she’d brought with her. 

They would push her into the ground if they could.

She would never forgive herself. But she couldn’t forsake herself, either. 

She tried to stand, and she saw a child, a burned child. Then another. Then so many charred corpses walking toward her, ready to crush her.

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry...

Not real, she reminded herself. 

It was real, her heart cried. They were all real, and I burned them all. 

She fought, cut through them with her sword, and they fell around her. Only one child stood now in the seared carnage. And Daenerys felt her blood run cold.

The child had her face...but Jon’s mouth, full and turned down in the corners, a natural frown. The silver hair of a dragon, the silver eyes of a wolf. 

Our child, she thought. This was the child Jon had murdered when he murdered her. Daenerys approached the child, and the girl began to cry. 

Daenerys pulled her into her arms. “I love you, my little princess,” she whispered. 

The girl handed her something, and smiled at her; it was an egg. The child seemed to evaporate then, pouring into the egg, which turned silver; the silvery gold of her hair, tipped with the silvery grey of Jon’s eyes. 

Dany carried the egg with her, and found a few more as she walked. The dead of the city made her remember the dead of the North, and she was again taunted by the dead Dothraki she’d brought to battle, the dead Unsullied. Viserion. Jorah. Rhaegal. 

Then Missandei.

She almost broke again but wouldn’t let it happen, fighting the despair and finding three more eggs. 

She found a last one, red with tips of gold, Fire and Blood, she thought.

They were starting to shimmer now, to become warm, as if her life amidst all the dead here are giving them life. She wrapped them and put them into her satchel.

She knew the time to leave had come. She would return, but for now, she must go. 

There were winged men above her, and she remembered Rhaego.

Is he here too, as her lost child with Jon was here? She wondered.

But she knew he wasn't, he couldn’t be.

That little girl’s light had poured into the silver egg. 

Perhaps Rhaego had poured into her dragons, her children. Into Drogon.

The Stallion who Mounts the World.

She tried to call out to Drogon, but now the Shadows didn’t want her to leave.

They scratched and tore at her, she could feel her blood dripping down her arms and hips an face.

The wound in her chest was burning. 

She had learned enough to fight by now, and had a sword with her, after all; but the swing of her sword was only slowing them down. 

She pulled out her dagger as well, knowing it wouldn’t do much but support; I felt hot in her hands, hotter by the minute.

Suddenly, it ignited as she fought, burning brightly and sweeping away the shadows that attacked her.

Finally, she heard Drogon roar above her. He landed and she raced up his wing, clinging to her satchel of eggs, her sword and still-burning dagger. 

She rested on Drogon’s great back.

How...? She wondered faintly. The dagger was starting to flicker now, it’s flame dying.

She was exhausted and aching when she returned to the temple. She told Kinvara what had happened, and she smiled. 

“Of course,” she said, helping to wash her wounds, helping her to bed. “When you wake, I will show you the gift that was brought to you.”

Daenerys nodded sleepily. “Why did the dagger ignite?”

“The dagger has been in your heart of fire, my queen.”

“I’m not a queen,” Daenerys insisted weakly. “If that’s why it lit up like that, it’s a shame he didn’t kill me with a sword. What a weapon that would be.”

Kinvara nodded, still smiling. “Oh, my queen. You have no idea.”


	9. Year Five: Westeros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Year Five in Westeros

Sansa

Was it only the honor that had made her always want to be Queen? 

No. It was the ability to make decisions without interference as well. The power over her own life.

Sansa was riding home from an afternoon of deliveries of what food she’d been able to get together.

She remembered wanting to be Queen, long before war, before grief and betrayal, had made her value the home she’d eagerly, stupidly abandoned. 

And now she was the Queen of an independent North. They bowed to her when she entered, they respected and obeyed her commands, they advised her but recognized her right to ignore their counsel.

But they were impoverished by years of war and raids, and by the winter that held the land in its icy grip and hadn’t let go. They were dying from cold, from hunger, from sickness.

Most of her friends from her childhood, from the houses around Winterfell, were gone. Those left, were wraith-like, exhausted, hungry, some scarred, all devastated. 

Sansa tried to help, but rations were low. She would arrive with baskets and tell them about her plan to set up a kind of kitchen where they could all come eat together. She would try to convince them to come to Winterfell, where even the hot springs no longer kept the halls warm in the blistering cold, but it was certainly warmer than their own keeps.

Her old friends had often envied her when they were children; she was the daughter of the Lord and Lady of Winterfell, her dresses were the prettiest, she knew more songs and could read books and scrolls. They had treated her with deference despite their envy, and they would eagerly accept her old dresses and show them off to each other.

Now her few satin Queenly dresses were no longer just prettier than theirs. They wore rags with stains so deep they would never be clean, and they would never have a cause or occasion to wear any old dresses of hers.

In the terrible grip of her own pain, she had rarely had a moment to think what the pain these girls or their families had been experiencing.  
They looked at her with tired bitterness and a broken, mangled hope that she could find a way as Queen to make things right again. 

She had written to her brother for help, but things weren’t much better in Kings Landing, especially since they’d had to rebuild the city that Jon’s deranged Dragon Queen had burned. 

She’d met with Tyrion to give him their books, and he promised he would send whatever goods could be bought with the gold offered by the odd Essosi book collector.

And now they had no books.

She didn’t sleep as well as she’d thought she would. She’d genuinely believed that, once the North had their independence, and she was here in the home she’d always known, had not understood how to value, and missed for years, she would sleep soundly. In the bed where her parents once lied, she would stare at the ceiling for hours.

She was home, she was protected. She was Queen. The North was free. 

But she was responsible now for all their lives.

What would Jon’s precious Queen do?  
Sansa shook the thought from her mind.

It didn’t suit her well to be bitter over the clear respect Daenerys’s soldiers had had for her. They hadn’t just obeyed her, hadn’t only respected her commands. They had respected HER. They had revered and loved her. And the respect wasn’t born of a long standing knowledge of her family, and reverence for her family name; or because they knew her father or any ancestral factor at all. She had earned their love. 

But she’d never had to deal with a war torn land with a starving people, Sansa thought angrily, and...she stopped the thought, looking out at the charred ruins of a small farm that she had visited once long ago. No dragons had come to burn the farm down. Was it the Free Folk? No, they’d never ventured this far South. And the Southern Armies had never marched this far North.

Bandits, probably.

She kept riding and felt a tear slip down her cheek. 

All those left were her responsibility. Those who died of starvation were on her hands.

She reminded herself that they were free now. She wondered, did it matter, now they might all starve?

But yes. Of course it mattered. Freedom always mattered. And she had won that freedom for them. Hadn’t she?

Her carriage stopped suddenly; her guards, hungry in their threadbare homespun clothing, immediately tensed.

“What is it?” She demanded.

But then she saw them; large, well fed men, far outnumbering her own; they approached and drew swords. 

Her men tried to fight. It broke her heart. Her emaciated men, weak from the cold and broken from the steady beating of hunger and grief and misery, broke like dry branches against the force of men who were tanned from sun and hadn’t known such starvation. 

The attackers spoke in a language foreign to her, and their leader smiled sadistically when he saw her crown. 

She was grabbed roughly, though she tried to fight, to scratch and kick, earning a punch in the face; then everything went dark.

When she awoke, her hands were tied. There was a rope around her waist as well, securing her to a chair. The light was murky, but she could see a wooden floor, a table covered with maps, and a man watching her. 

“You are Queen,” the man said in a thick accent.

Sansa shuddered. Her face and head hurt from the blow, and terror pumped through her. 

“If you return me, my people will reward you,” she told him, mustering her courage.

He laughed. “Your people poor,” he told her. “They have nothing to give for reward. Men pay gold for queen in Essos.”

Sansa would not cry, she told herself. But she was afraid. This man would sell her, and she would be at the mercy of whoever paid coin, they would use her as Ramsay had.

“Do you have any of my people here?”

“Many of your people, yes,” he said. “My people now.” 

Sansa wondered if anyone had come to find her. “My men will find me,” she said with a bravery she didn’t feel.

“Your men dead,” he responded bluntly. “You are virgin?”

She flushed. If she told him she was no virgin, would he rape her? Let his men rape her?

Oh, but if she told him she was, and he sold her at a higher price, would she be killed for lying?

“Yes,” she said. The man grinned. 

“Good. We make much gold.” With that, he left her, tied to the chair and alone with her thoughts.

She had lied. She would rather die, than be raped repeatedly, and maybe someone would come for her before she was sold.

But she couldn’t be sure of that.

She hadn’t wanted to dwell on it, but her brother Bran might not help her. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been so distant from everything. As if nothing mattered at all.

And Jon...she winced. 

The last time she’d seen him, she’d asked, “can you ever forgive me?” 

He had hugged her. But he hadn’t answered. And when she’d sent him a raven at Castle Black, inviting him to visit Winterfell, he hadn’t answered then, either. 

Of course he didn’t forgive her. She’d broken a vow she’d made to him, rendered sacred by being made in their family’s Godswood.

And now his queen was dead by his own hand.

He would likely never forgive her.

She hadn’t allowed herself to think too much on that. On the ramifications of what she had done; betraying Jon had been the worst of it. And what if Daenerys Targaryen had killed him, to rid herself of the threat? 

There had been nights, even in the early days of her triumph at being queen, where she’d lain in bed wondering if things would have been different, had she tried to welcome Jon’s fiery queen. 

Had Sansa requested Northern independence after Daenerys had taken the throne with the North’s help, would the Dragon Queen have granted it? 

She’d agreed to it for the Iron Islands. She might have...Sansa refused to pursue the thought again. Too many nights she’d spent, wondering if she’d destroyed her brother’s life...cousin’s life, really...no! He’s my brother! Had she destroyed his life? For no good reason? Would things have gone differently if she hadn’t been so cold to Jon’s Queen? Maybe if she hadn’t been such, Arya wouldn’t have either

Arya had admired Targaryen warrior women when they were children. Visenya especially. Sansa knew her sister had been excited to see dragons flying over Winterfell. 

But Arya had sided with Sansa. Against Jon, against Daenerys.

Sansa wondered often about Arya. Was she all right? Was she happy? Was she even alive? 

Did she regret what they’d done, or did she, as Sansa had, justified the ruin of Jon’s life? 

The North was free, but dying slowly, an agonizing death of starvation and cold. 

It’s not as if Daenerys could have changed that, Sansa though angrily. 

Sansa wondered again if anyone would save her. Or would she be sentenced to the misery and horror that Ramsay had put her through? 

No. She would die first, she vowed. 

Jon 

The trip back to Westeros had been grim. Jon was lost in terrible thoughts. He had murdered his own child. 

Dany’s face haunted him. How the firelight in the cave had cast a soft golden light over her. The wonder on her features the first time they’d been together, in her cabin on the ship. How she’d looked at him from atop her dragon, reaching for him. Her expression when he’d slid that dagger into her.

Gods, he hadn’t known such anguish could exist. And she’d been carrying his child. He had killed them both.

And now she was alive somewhere. He had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted to see her. To tell her he was sorry, so sorry. He’d been sorry as soon as he’d done it. 

What if he hadn’t killed her? What if he’d given her a chance to recover?

Hadn’t Robert Baratheon taken great benefit from the murder of Princess Elia and her children? Jon’s brother and sister. Aegon and Rhaenys. 

Hadn’t Tywin Lannister sacked Kings Landing, killing men women and children? And what of Castamere? Didn’t they still sing of that massacre? Yet Tyrion had taken his time in murdering his father, hadn’t he?

Yet Daenerys had to die immediately.

What if he’d given her a reprieve? 

And then, what if he’d been more loving, instead of cutting her out? Could knowing she was loved, have prevented the whole disaster?

Would they be married now?

The child he’d killed would be four years old. 

He thought he might be losing his mind. He dreamed of a child one night, and he was sure she was his. Her silver hair glistened in the unearthly light of the dreamscape, and her eyes, grey as smoke, had glimmered at him...his own eyes. Daenerys’ face, but his own mouth.

He fell to his knees. “I’m sorry,” he told her.

“I’m a dragon now,” she said, in a voice like wind. “I will wake from stone.”

As the seas grew grey and choppy, as the air began to freeze, the dreams of trees returned. 

“The Great Other still lives,” they said. “You have forsaken your fire, King Aegon.”

The ship finally returned to Hardhome, and Tormund at least was happy to be home, only to find it being deserted. Slave ships had come to take the people, and those left were helplessly angry.

“We have to find them,” Jon said. “We have to fight them”

“We don’t don’t have enough ships, little crow,” Tormund said regretfully. But Jon could see his anger as well.

A few days later they received a raven; the news that the queen of the North had been taken. That Essosi slave ships had been invading and taking people, and now they had Sansa.

Jon decided right then that he must go. He didn’t ruin his entire life, and murder his love, and their child, for fucking Sansa, just to have her dumb ass captured by slavers.

He and Tormund and a few others began the journey south to try to get ships, to rescue Sansa and the other prisoners. He sent a raven to Bran, who responded with assurances that he would send ships, and to meet at Gulltown.

Ser Davos was captaining the ship they were on. Tyrion had joined him, as had Gendry, whether because they wanted to get away from the horror Westeros had become, or because it was Sansa, it was hard to say.

Ser Davos seemed to have aged ten years, but he was smiling when he saw Jon.

“I’m glad to see you, lad,” he said warmly, and Jon believed him.

Tyrion approached him as well, but Jon glared at him in a manner that forbade greeting.

As they sailed, Jon listened to them reminisce.

Even Tormund and Davos were happy to see each other.

They spoke of the battles they fought. Jon was getting increasingly tense and Tyrion changed the subject to talk about his little niece and nephew.

“They’re all I live for now,” he said.

Ser Davos’s face had gone dark and Jon wondered if he was thinking of his son.

His son who had been burned alive by Tyrion, Jon thought angrily.

“Daenerys was with child”, Jon said, and the men went silent. Jon looked at Tyrion. “You were with her every day. Did you know? Did you know she was carrying my child when you told me to kill her?”

Tyrion’s features were etched in horror. 

“I didn’t,” he finally whispered. “I’m sorry.”

They were all quiet for awhile, only the sound of the sea under the ship.

“You told me to ask you again in ten years if I did the right thing,” Jon said.

“If we did the right thing,” Tyrion reminded him heavily. “I didn’t know she was with child”

“You said she liberated slavers Bay and she liberated Kings Landing. You made it sound like she did the same thing. Like she burned it all. But she truly liberated them. It’s not even Slavers Bay anymore, it’s the Bay of Dragons. You said she crucified hundreds of slavers, you left out that she crucified exactly 163 because they’d crucified 163 children. You said she burned the Khals but not that she was their prisoner. You lied. You manipulated me.”

“How did you find out?” Tyrion asks after a long silence.

“I went there. I found Visenya Targaryen’s sword in the North. I wanted to bring it to her body. Had no idea where she was laid to rest by Drogon. They told me. They told me all about her. They love her.”

Jon saw the grief on Tyrion’s face and wondered if he should tell him that Daenerys was alive somewhere; he decided against it.

Tyrion could not be trusted as he’d once thought. If Tyrion hadn’t told Varys about Jon’s parentage, Daenerys would have had one less betrayal. 

He was angry at Tyrion, so angry that he found he was gripping the ship’s railing to keep from throwing him overboard.

If he hadn’t listened to Tyrion, everything would be different.

Maybe their child would have lived. Maybe Kings Landing would have lived.


	10. Year Five: Essos Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So I haven’t updated this in a year and a day. (Well, a year and five days, actually). I don’t know if anyone is even still following this fic, if you are, thank you so much, seriously. Also I am so sorry! 
> 
> What happened was that I am a tax accountant and work got really busy, then after tax season I and a lot of others at the firm I worked were let go because of the pandemic and I was just depressed. 
> 
> Then I started writing again but in an earlier chapter I had started to put the beginnings of a plague that’s going to ravage Westeros and I thought...no one wants to read that! 
> 
> I also realized that a LOT of things I had Dany doing in this fic are things that I saw in another fic and (unintentionally I swear) I had pretty much swiped them. 
> 
> I have since apologized to the author, who said it was not a problem at all (thank you, CinnamonBurns) and she said, I quote, “I did not invent aqueducts, libraries or public education” (but I still felt bad because I sure didn’t think of it myself and forgot about Sweetwater River all together). 
> 
> ANYWAY, this chapter is dedicated to WhiteDragonWolf, who is incredibly kind and said he was still interested in this fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Year Five in Essos, had to break this up into two parts because this is the first Arya POV so kind of had to go over what she was doing for five years. I hope you enjoy it!

Year Five: Essos Part 1

Arya 

The first time she’d set out, on her ship she’d named the Sea Wolf, Arya had to return after only a fortnight. The second time, she came upon the Lonely Light, and was all the better for it. She’d only sailed for a long journey twice. Once to go to Braavos, and then to return to Westeros. And while they’d hit the occasional storm on those two trips, and the ship had bucked like a mad horse, and giant waves had spat three feet of water across the deck, the captain and crew were knowledgeable and experienced. 

Arya was not, and most of her crew weren’t either. At the Lonely Light, where she stopped to purchase further supplies, she told Lord Gylbert Farwynd her plan, and he and his sons became very excited. His son Yohn offered - all but begged, truly - to join her. He would bring several of his own men as well. 

Yohn Farwynd knew his way around a ship. He didn’t so much as tremble when they hit squalls, and Arya’s men panicked, as their vessel seemed so tiny against the vastness of a roiling ocean; nor did he begin to go mad with sheer, haunted terror when the wind and sea would go suddenly still, for days at a time, and it seemed as though they’d be doomed to sit forever on an eternal glass surface, unmoving. He had merely chuckled and called it “the doldrums”, as if this was a mere and common annoyance and not an existential threat. 

Yohn had tried to get Arya and her crew to eat lemons. It made Arya sad, because it reminded her of Sansa, of her lost childhood, but she’d learned that it was wise to take Yohn’s advice. Some of her crew did so as well, but most didn’t. They did not enjoy lemons and were certainly not going to eat them. Yohn had looked at them balefully and told them they’d be sorry. When so many men had refused, Yohn told them to eat mussels, many of them. They did on occasion but these were unfamiliar to them, and not much tastier to their palette than lemons.

“You should make them,” Yohn told Arya.

But Arya had been angered by Daenerys and her demands for everyone around her to call her queen. Arya didn’t examine this, why should she? Her suspicions had proven true. The mad bitch had burned a city. And had it not started with small demands? Arya wasn’t going to demand her men eat lemons. 

Arya found out soon enough that she should have forced them.

The terrible thing that happened three moons into the voyage would have given her nightmares, had she not already seen so much in her life. First, her men began to sit lethargically, talking about aching joints and weariness. Their arms and legs began to swell even as they became gaunt. Their skin was blotchy, bruising at the slightest touch. Then they began to develop blisters. These started off as little blood blisters but bloomed into horrid ulcers. Their eyes became sunken, and their gums swelled, reddened, bled, then became black, and their teeth loosened and fell out. Their bones would suddenly break, and their wounds would not heal. Sometimes old wounds would split open. One of her men who’d gotten a stab wound years before, screamed as the scars suddenly opened and bled. Their very bodies would creak and rattle when they moved. Then their limbs turned black. 

What was worse, to Arya’s horror, was that they seemed to be going mad. They thought they saw food where in fact there was none, and would wake screaming from vivid and terrible dreams. They would be speaking of how beautiful the sea was, how wonderful, then in a matter of moments, they would say it was hideous, evil, and that it had hands and a thousand mouths that would devour them. 

“What’s happening to them?” she asked Yohn in horror. 

“It’s scurvy,” he said grimly. “And we’re out of lemons. I tell you, Captain Stark, if we don’t get more soon, it will hit all of us.”

Yohn went on to tell her that her men needed to obey her. That a ship’s captain was as much as a king on the sea. That if she’d punished them early on, she could have saved them from far worse.

Arya shuddered. She was not going to do that. Punishing her men for disobeying her was something she would do. Jon’s murderous dragon queen. 

But now, watching her men suffering and dying, she realized she’d made a mistake. 

And after all, she had no idea what Jon’s little queen would do in any situation. 

The further they had sailed from Westeros, the more she’d started to examine what had happened in the days, weeks, moons before she’d left. 

Something strange had happened, she couldn’t understand. She’d been suspicious of Jon. Maybe because she wanted to be sure he hadn’t changed. She couldn’t say. And Daenerys. She’d been more suspicious of Daenerys. 

When she’d first seen the dragons she’d been excited. But then...she was indifferent to them, and then the indifference had turned to rancor. She’d never had a single conversation with Daenerys. It seemed odd to her now. She’d told Jon they didn’t trust “his queen.” 

“You don’t know her,” Jon had said. 

“I’ll never know her,” Arya had told him coldly. “She’s not one of us.” 

But we were right, she thought, remembering Kings Landing. 

And now she was on a ship, her crew dying, because she didn’t want to order her men to eat lemons. Had not even asked Yohn why he was insistent. What had she been thinking?

They sat in her cabin one clear night, the groans of dying men echoing down the hall outside her door. 

“I didn’t listen to you,” she said, gripping her metal cup to keep her hand from shaking and spilling her spirit ration. 

“You did,” he responded. “But you refused to order your men to do so.” 

“I didn’t want to be like her,” Arya said. In those days of the first year, it still sounded rational in her mind, this opposition to anything even remotely like the queen who’d murdered a city. 

“Like who?” 

“Daenerys,” Arya said her name as if it were a foul curse. 

Yohn stared at her. “You didn’t want to be like Daenerys, so you wouldn’t give your crew orders?” 

When stated plainly like that, it made little sense. Arya’s head ached. 

“Punishing men for refusing to follow an order...” Arya began. But no, it made no sense. Not now. It had at the time, but...

“Can you name a ruler who doesn’t?” Yohn asked.

“I’m not a ruler,” Arya said quickly. 

“You are the captain of a ship. At sea, there is no higher power but the Drowned God. You are a ruler here.”

“I didn’t want to do what she would do,” Arya’s argument, that had seemed so right in Westeros, and in the early days of their journey, had little strength. 

“You threatened to cut my liege’s throat,” Yohn pointed out, and Arya could hear in his voice he was getting angry. “You are not all that opposed to violence.” 

“That was different, she threatened my brother.” 

“Your brother murdered the queen.” 

“The queen burned a city!” 

“Well, you can rest assured on one point, Captain Stark. You did the opposite of what Daenerys would have done.” 

“Good,” Arya said firmly.

“That’s why she arrived in Westeros with the largest army the world had ever seen.” 

“Because she would have punished her men for refusing an order?” 

“As would any ruler. But yes. She didn’t have to, mind you, her men obeyed her.”

“Often without question,” Arya snapped. 

“Indeed. So when my liege and myself warned her to make certain her men ate lemons, she did. She asked if oranges and pineapples would do as well, and this turned out to be just as effective. So when we made the voyage with her, as our liege supported her claim, we arrived in Westeros with most of her armies untouched by scurvy. Maybe you should consider using a better yardstick than ‘not like Daenerys’ for judging a matter.” 

Those moons had been a horror, and by the time they saw land, over half her crew had died. They dropped anchor and rowed ashore, finding trees that bore fruit, wild boars for meat. The first week men were still dying, no less then four each day, and usually more, but by the second they seemed to be recovering. 

But then they were found by the land’s inhabitants, and were forced to flee under a hail of arrows. 

They started toward another island, but were almost beset by wyverns, and quickly moved on. 

In the first year they’d been able to stop at Pentos for supplies, but were unable to dock at Slavers Bay. “It’s the Bay of Dragons,” a man had spat at her, “and we don’t welcome Westerosi here.” 

Over time, Volantis and then, by the end of the third year, even Pentos did not welcome Westerosi Ships. 

At first they’d been welcomed and even given gifts at Qarth. She’d been told that killing that monstrous Dragon Queen had saved their way of life. 

“He means slavery,” Yohn had told her later. “By destroying Daenerys, Westeros saved the slave trade. I’m sure they’re very proud.” 

As moons turned into years, more and more Essosi ports closed to them. Qarth was among the last, early in the fourth year. Only Braavos and a very few others allowed them to dock. 

And that’s where she was when she overheard the story; the Dragon Queen was very much alive, had slowly but surely taken over almost half of Essos, yet had no official position, and she was currently staying in Meereen. 

Arya had to find out if this was true. 

Using her faces, it was not hard to slip undetected to get information. Daenerys was alive and in Meereen. She would leave and return intermittently. It was true she held no official title, though was technically a Triarch of Volantis. 

She spent much of her time advising the elected ruler of Meereen, a bastard sellsword named Daario Naharis. She usually advised against war, but was locked in long standing conflict with slavers, and if she were asked to provide assistance to enslaved people, she would. The bed slaves in Lys wanted her to help them, and were trying to find a way to reach her. 

Arya had to find out the truth of it, and she wasted no time in finding this Daario Naharis. He was rarely alone, but it wasn’t difficult to find one of his men by himself, a man named Goranor, and cut his throat. 

She was able to speak with Daario then, using the man’s face and walking with him and his men into the pyramid.

“Is it true Daenerys will go to battle with Lys?” She asked, forcing her voice to sound casual.

Daario shook his head. “She doesn’t even know yet that they want her to fight for them. And I’d rather keep it that way. She’s already planning to go to Stygai. She has a death wish, I think. I know she doesn’t appreciate having information withheld from her. But Lys, it’s not any armies they might hire that I fear, it’s poison. Lysenes are gifted with it. I won’t lose her again.” 

Arya was angry that he would keep this information from Daenerys, protecting her as if were a precious being who had never harmed a soul.

“So just making sure,” she said aloud. “We are keeping silent about the whole thing.”

“I think until she’s stronger, emotionally, I mean, it’s the best course of action,” Daario said. “She seems strong. I understand that. But after what Westeros put her through...” he didn’t finish the thought. 

They entered a room with walls full of books, where tables were set up, a library, and there Daenerys sat, her face resting on her hand as she read some massive tome in front of her on the table. 

It was true! Daenerys was clearly as alive as Arya herself. She looked up when the men entered, then stood and approached them, and Arya felt suddenly ill. Her small form looked fragile, as if she’d somehow grown smaller, and the blue dress she wore showed a small part of the gash where Jon’s dagger had cut into her. 

“Are you all right?” Daenerys asked Daario. 

“I am,” he assured her. 

Arya watched as the other men bowed and offered her food, water, falling over themselves in an attempt to give her anything she asked. 

“The bed slaves in Lys are desperate for your assistance,” Arya said, without preamble. 

Daenerys’s eyes widened and the men turned to Arya in shock.

Daario took a step toward Arya and she readied to fight, but Daenerys put her hand on Daario’s arm, and he turned to her.

“Is this true?” She asked. Daario hesitated. “Don’t lie,” she added, her voice like ice.

“Yes,” he said, heavily. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Daario shot Arya a look full of rage, then turned back to Daenerys. 

“I said there were cities who wanted your help,” he began, but Daenerys cut him off.

“You didn’t tell me this,” she said.

“I know you don’t like to lay sieges, because you don’t want the people to starve. You don’t like to attack, because you don’t want them to be hurt. They have no army of their own, it would not be an alliance. I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Afraid they would poison you. Afraid you would hurt as you do whenever anyone is hurt anywhere. I didn’t want you to suffer any more than you already have.”

“And what about the suffering of those people?”

“I’m sorry, Daenerys. I’m sorry. I couldn’t...”

“We have to do something,” she said. 

“Yes, but what? If we can’t siege and we can’t attack-“

“If I’d known this was happening-“

“Now you know,” Arya said, sharply. “So what will you do?” 

“What I think should be done,” she began carefully, emphasizing each word, “is...” she hesitated. “Is there a way to arm them? The people? As we did with Meereen?” 

“They’re bed slaves,” Daario said, still glaring at Arya. “So I’m not sure it would help. It’s not as if they have any training.”

“No, I suppose not.” She was pacing now. Her gauzy dress ruffled around her bare feet as she did. “A siege would take too much time. And they may be harmed.” She turned to Grey Worm. “Come with me, we’ll go over everything.” As they started to leave, she turned to Daario. “Are you coming?” Daario gave Arya a look that clearly stated they would discuss this later, and then followed Daenerys. 

As soon as they’d left the room, another man who Daario had called Adaro clapped Arya on the back appreciatively. 

“I don’t know how your balls got so big, Goranor, but thank you. Hopefully Daario doesn’t kill you,” he said. 

“She needed to know,” another man said. “None of us want her hurt, and I could see why Daario wanted to protect her. You saw how he was when we heard she’d been murdered by those filthy Westerosi. But she had to know.” 

Arya turned to them. She bit back the response she wanted to throw at them, that Daenerys was hardly an innocent victim in Westeros. She didn’t know these men, to know whether they all deserved to die. It was bad enough she had killed Goranor knowing so little about him. She knew their feeling at least was genuine, she could read it. 

“We were all fighters before we ever met her,” Arya finally said. “But now we all have to wait on her word. If that’s the position we’re in, then she needs to know everything.” 

“I agree with you,” Adaro said. 

“As do I. But I wasn’t going to be the one to defy Daario’s command,” the other man said. 

“Nor I,” Adaro said. “Tychar and I owe you.”

The man apparently named Tychar agreed, and they headed toward another room that was set up as a kind of mess hall, where they approached the kitchen at the other side, and informed the servants there that they were ready to eat.

They sat down to wait. 

“Do you think she’ll fly over there with her dragon?” Arya asked as the food was laid before them. 

“Doubtful. Not after what happened in Westeros,” Adaro said. 

“She brought her dragon to Volantis,” Tychar pointed out.

“Volantis had armies of their own. She’ll hesitate, I suspect, to bring the dragons to Lys. Especially after Westeros.” 

Arya was frowning. Adaro had said dragons. As in...more than one. Before she could question that, Tychar was talking again.

“They wrecked her over there.”

“Is that what she said?” Arya asked, her rage returning. 

“Now you know well that’s not what she said. You were there when she addressed us. She tried to say she was a monster. But we know her. We know what she was when she left us. And then, she did stop us from warring with them.”

“Warring with them?” 

“With Westeros. To avenge her. It was all we could think about. But the Captain wasn’t going anywhere until he followed through on establishing the freedom of the people here. It was her legacy, he said.” 

“And then how angry was he when they chose him as their high ruler,” Adaro added with a laugh. 

They all laughed then. “He was mad enough to spit nails,” Tychar said. “He said he was going to ream the Queen out when she returned. And we all expected her to return. To come back after getting that throne she was so obsessed with. She’d come back with her three dragons and get Daario out of having to rule.”

“And then we heard the news. How those Westerosi maggots dragged her into some conflict at the other side of the continent. They killed two of her dragons, half her armies, Ser Jorah and Missandei, and then her. Snakes,” Adaro spat. “And now we have her back.” Adaro’s voice reverberated with undercurrent of anger.

“She left here a strong ruler with three dragons and the largest army in the world. Confident and unshakable. A woman who had freed her people, started with nothing and built an empire. She came back here with one dragon. She was a woman who would never harm a single child. You remember how she locked away her dragons because one child was killed by accident. How she wept over it.” The men all nodded in agreement. 

Arya started to eat the food that had been provided. These men could not be blamed for being enamored with their Queen. Hadn’t Jon been? 

She couldn’t help but to be angry at them for clearly blaming Westeros for Daenerys’s actions. 

They were angry, so angry. 

She would wait until they’d finished eating, and then find Daenerys.

She had to be alone with her. 

After supper, Arya searched for Daenerys, and found her easily. Alone, looking over a terrace. It would be so easy to push her over, and that would be the end of it. 

“Odd they would leave you alone, unprotected like this,” she remarked, walking over to her. 

Daenerys looked at her, as if estimating. Her gaze was cold. “It’s all our men here,” she said. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”

Arya nodded. “Daario just wanted to protect you,” she said. She was angry at all of them for wanting to protect this woman who had slaughtered a city. But she felt for them, their grief at losing her was blatantly obvious. Arya almost felt pity for them. Because she could not let this woman live.

“I know,” Daenerys said with a sigh.

“Do we have a plan?” 

“Yes. Grey Worm and Daario will go over it in the morning.” She shuddered. “I’m so tired of war.”

“I thought you liked war.” Again, Arya had to struggle to keep the bite out of her voice.

“I thought I did too,” Daenerys said. “It was different when I thought I was doing the right thing. When I was freeing people, saving them. It was satisfying. But...” she broke off.

“But you weren’t saving people in Westeros.”

She glanced at her. “I made a lot of mistakes in Westeros. I never should have listened to my advisors.” 

“Your advisors told you to burn a city?” Arya could not stop the words, she felt as if she wanted to hit this woman with them. Hurt her with them.

“No. They told me not to attack the city at all. They told me to lay siege to the city as if starving the people would have been humane. They advised me to seize Casterly Rock, a dried up castle with no strategic value, and left my allies open to attack. They told me not to attack Euron Greyjoy, and this gave him the time to build the Scorpions which killed my dragon. Gave him the opportunity to capture Missandei and murder her. 

“They kept saying if I attacked the city, people would die. I listened to them. And then after I’d lost everything, after the horror of the North-and I regret going there more than almost anything else - after moons of their plans destroying me, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of me, only me and Drogon...we did what I wanted to do at the start. 

“We burned Euron’s fleet, we burned the fortifications, we burned the wall, we burned the Golden Company. My armies had been halved by then, my best friends were dead, my allies were gone, the North despised me because I’d had the audacity to go there, to help save their selfish worthless lives, and two of my children were dead, I had one left. 

“And the city fell. In less than an hour. Less than half an hour. Less, even. Not one civilian had died in my attack. I lost everything...for nothing. My children and my two dearest friends died. For nothing.” She shook her head. “And then I...I guess I lost myself, too. I became everything I’d sworn to fight. I became a monster. Worse than my father, worse than Cersei. Worse than any of them. And then I was murdered.” 

“You think your losses justified burning the city?” 

“No. Nothing justifies that. I have innocent blood on my hands. I can never make up for it. It’s like I said, I became a monster.”

One other thing she said stuck with Arya, she knew she should let it go, but she couldn’t. “You said the North hated you for trying to help save their lives.”

“It’s the only reason I went there. To save them. They resented my presence, couldn’t bring themselves to be remotely civil to me.” 

You tried to take their independence, Arya thought angrily. 

“Why?” Arya pressed.

Daenerys turned to her. “Why what?” 

“Why did they hate you if you went there to save them?”

“I don’t know. They hated my father. They were angry that...” she broke off and sadness crossed her features, which made Arya angrier. 

“Angry that...?” 

Daenerys hesitated. “Their king bent the knee to me. They wanted to be independent.”

“You didn’t think they deserved to be independent?”

“It wasn’t about what they deserved. My armies had been diminished fighting their war. Before I even went there, I lost one of my dragons trying to save their king. My advisors didn’t want me to use my dragons to take the Capitol. If I’d lost the war with Cersei, it’s not as if she would have agreed to their independence anyway, and she didn’t try to help fight the threat to the continent, either. 

“The North could have moved all their people south, to better prepare. But they didn’t want to lose their home. I lost a dragon, half my armies, and one of my dearest friends, defending their homes and lives, and they didn’t want to help me get my home back. Their idea of independence was to be completely dependent on my armies to save them, and their idea of an alliance was for me to help them for nothing in return.” 

Arya leaned against the edge beside this angry little queen, thinking now. She wasn’t lying. She was speaking the truth, at least as she’d seen it.

“Why do you think their king bent the knee to you? Knowing how his people felt?”

“He...he got in trouble in the North. The deep North, beyond the Wall. He and his men were surrounded. I went with my dragons to save them and one of my dragons was killed. After that, I promised him I would help him fight. Then he bent the knee to me. But he let his people think he did it to get me to help. He told them that he bent the knee to save them. That was a lie. I’d already promised to help before he bent the knee. I think he...he maybe in the moment thought I deserved it.”

“Maybe he was in love with you,” Arya ventured, and Daenerys turned to her then, her eyes lit with fire; this was the queen Arya remembered.

“He didn’t love me,” she spat, and the anger seemed to radiate from her now. “He never loved me. He asked me to come help him, and when we got there he made no effort to make me feel at all welcome in his home. He allowed his family and people to treat me and my men like the dirt beneath their feet.

“His sister complained about feeding my men, in front of her people, as if she were a spoiled child instead of the lady of a great house, as if I would be too irresponsible to bring my own provisions, as if they were inconvenienced by our presence. As if we were invading, when their king invited, all but begged us to come.

“His brother told me that the Night King had my dragon, because he could see things in visions, but didn’t see fit to warn me that my people and I were heading for an ambush when I went back to Dragonstone. Once his war was won, their king discarded me, abandoned me, betrayed me in every way, and then murdered me and our child.”

“Child?” Arya’s heart was pounding.

“I had a child in me that that lying traitorous murderer put there.” 

“Did he know?” 

“Doubtful. And he never will.” 

“You...aren’t going to tell him?”

“Tell him? I hope I never see him again. He killed me! He killed the babe inside me. He kissed me, he had his mouth on mine, and he slid his dagger into me. Why would I give him a chance to do it again?”

Arya had nothing to say to that, and the rage from Daenerys was palpable. As if sensing it, Drogon’s enormous black shape flew above them. He landed with a crash right above them, and shrieked. Daenerys reached up, touched his scales tenderly, said something to him in a soothing voice, speaking in Valyrian. 

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Arya said finally. 

Daenerys turned back to her. “I’m going to be honest with you, Goranor, I think you did mean to upset me. Daario told me that he sometimes wanted to get me angry. Hoping if I get angry it will somehow make me like I was before. But I don’t know if I’ll ever be...me again. I know I can never again let myself be who I became that day in Kings Landing. If it weren’t for Drogon, I would have just killed myself. To keep from ever doing anything like that again. I’d rather be dead.”

Arya stared at her. “And once all the people here are free, will you go back to Westeros?”

“Why would I ever go back to Westeros? Westeros brought me nothing but pain and loss. I’ll never go there again.”

“You don’t want revenge?”

“Revenge...no. I’ve had enough revenge for five lifetimes. I hurt and murdered innocents. Better for them to think I’m dead. Just as they are dead to me.”

Arya nodded thoughtfully. 

If she had no intention to go back to Westeros, there was no real reason to kill her. Part of her wanted to. This woman had murdered hundreds of thousands of people. 

She did not want to feel sympathy for her at all, but there was little denying the truth of her words. The North had been ungrateful to her, had indeed been cold and unfriendly, had done all they could to make her feel alone and unwelcome.

But hadn’t they gone South to fight for her?

It was true, though, that Bran didn’t warn her of the ambush waiting for her. Had Bran known? 

A terrible thought crashed into her then. Bran must have known Arya was going to kill Cersei. If he’d told Jon and Daenerys, perhaps none of that would have happened. 

And that was on Arya’s head, too, wasn’t it? If she’d told Jon... 

She turned to go back inside. 

“Good night, Your Grace,” she said. 

“I’m not a queen anymore,” Daenerys responded. “Good night.” 

The next day, she headed back to her ship. 

As she walked down the street, she noticed that it was sunny and clean, that the people seemed well fed, happy. A stab of memory cut into her, of Kings Landing. It was far cleaner here, and certainly smelled better. But the merchants and running children...it hurt, but in a way that was separated from her. As if the girl she’d once been had died and left Arya her memories. 

A woman appeared around the turn of a corner. For a moment, Arya thought it was the Red Woman. Melisandre. But she wasn’t. She wore the same type of red dress, and an identical necklace, but her hair was black and her eyes were clear blue-green. 

“I’m Kinvara,” she said, smiling. “We must speak.” 

“I have to go to my -“

“You do not have to go to your ship just yet, Arya Stark of Winterfell.” Arya stared at her. 

She can see me, Arya thought, under the face. 

“Yes. I can see you. Come, I have much to tell you.”

That had been a year ago. 

Arya had tried to steer clear of Daenerys’ cities. But as Lys and then Myr fell to her, and yet others, it became harder, and soon only Braavos was welcoming to Westerosi, and even that was a cool welcome. 

She heard things about Westeros every now and again, and at first she’d hoped it was a lie. More, that what Kinvara had told her was a lie. Or at least a mistake. Arya could see in those eyes the woman spoke true. But she could be wrong. She had to be wrong. 

If she was right, Bran was dead. Or lost deep within himself, a prisoner. 

And the thing that was ruling Westeros now was a being of pure evil. 

Arya had forced herself to think about it. She hated the idea, but she knew she had to examine everything. 

And now, she thought, it was odd that Jon would claim he had bent the knee to save the North, when in fact Daenerys had pledged her help before that. Jon, who would never lie just to preserve his own reputation.

Odd that Jon - who had never allowed anyone to be bullied or hurt or isolated, who Sam had once said was his shield, that Jon had told his Nights Watch brothers that no one was to harm Sam - would allow his own men to be cold and disrespectful to his queen, a woman he had bent the knee to, and even worse, a woman he loved. 

Stranger still that Sam and Sansa had both said Jon was the rightful king, to destroy Daenerys, then after her death, never spoke of it again. 

The Unsullied had left Westeros. Why should Jon have to be exiled? Could he not stay at Winterfell? Who would know? 

He was a threat to Sansa’s crown and Bran’s, he had to go. 

And what hurt Arya the worst, was her own actions. She hadn’t trusted Jon, Jon, who had been dearest to her, who had given her Needle. 

She’d believed she was playing the game of faces with him, and something had looked a little off, something not quite right, and Arya had believed perhaps he’d come back wrong. It hadn’t crossed her mind that he was being manipulated. 

Kinvara had told her that Jon was harder to manipulate. That having died and returned made it harder for “The Raven” as she called Bran, to sink his claws into. Harder, but not impossible. 

That grief and hunger and rage and fear and loneliness all made it easier. 

That Arya herself had trusted Bran. That her love for her family made her an easier target. That her own mistrust made a wedge that The Raven could sink into. 

Arya was sick whenever she thought about it. If it was true, she had unwittingly been a part of it. 

She could have played the game of faces with the dragon queen. She could have trusted Jon. She could have told them both she would kill Cersei. 

Instead she’d turned on Jon, and then, when all was said and done, after saying they had to stick together, the last of the Starks, she’d left Westeros with no plan to return. 

She’d helped to ruin Jon’s life. Kinvara had been gentle, had said that Arya could not be blamed any more than the rest of them, that she had been manipulated. That here and there, even the men of the North had been manipulated. They wanted independence, sure, but they were not so dishonorable to utterly disrespect and disregard an ally...were they? 

The wars had changed them all. Some might have to be manipulated much, some very little. 

Arya remembered seeing Jon again under the weirwood. Telling him Sansa was trying to look out for their family. 

As if Jon wasn’t! That haunted her now. He’d risked his life to bring an army and dragons to save them. To save the North. And even she had been cold to him. 

Jon’s child...that was the worst of it, maybe not the worst of what had happened, of course that had to be the burned city, but the most painful for Arya. That if what Kinvara said was true, she had taken the side of a monster over Jon who she had loved, had allowed and contributed to a situation that had left his queen, who he had loved, vulnerable to manipulation, and it had cost hundreds of thousands of lives. And then Arya herself had encouraged him to murder her, and he’d killed his own child. 

Arya had allowed herself to be so violently set against Daenerys, against anything that remotely reminded her of Daenerys, she’d refused to demand her men eat the lemons as Yohn had said. Had Bran had a hand in that? Had he expected, no, intended, for her to die?

And if the tales of Westeros were true, it was on the brink of ruin. Starvation, uprisings, illness, ignorance. 

And Bran...the stories were terrifying. People gouging out their own eyes, cutting their own throats. If the stories were true, he could make people do things...

And if that was the case, even if what Kinvara had told her was wrong, even if Bran - or the malevolent force in his body - hadn’t manipulated Daenerys’ mind into burning the city, he could have stopped her. Made her jump off her terrace at Dragonstone. Why hadn’t he just done that? 

But she knew. Because then she would have been a martyr. Because then perhaps her own people might not fight for Jon to take the throne, but there were certainly those who would. Daenerys had provided an alliance, without which, they’d have all died. If she’d thrown herself to her death, and it was assumed a suicide brought on by grief, she’d be remembered as a hero. 

Burning the city destroyed the Targaryen name forever in the hearts and minds of Westeros. How could Jon possibly try to claim the throne after that? 

Not that Jon even wanted the throne. But Bran would have to see to it that Jon wouldn’t have a chance in all the hells to take it. 

Kinvara had told Arya that he’d even pushed Sansa, but very little. It hadn’t taken much. 

Arya had originally no intention of returning to Westeros, but she wondered if she should try to see Jon. To tell him that Daenerys was alive, that both of them had been manipulated, that some thing lived in Bran’s body and had made them all do things they never would have otherwise. 

Did he hate her now? They’d all moved on with their lives after destroying his, it was hard to imagine him forgiving them.

What could her apologies possibly mean? 

She had stopped in Braavos for supplies, as was her regular habit. She had seen lands that had been unknown before, but only from far away. Arrows would greet them if they came closer, or wyverns. 

She could hear men talking all along the docks, and her ears sharpened as she realized they were speaking of Westeros. 

She glanced at them, moving closer, and then she saw ships...ships with Targaryen sails! 

The men were talking about whether Daario or “Mhysa” would go after slavers...

The slavers couldn’t go to Naath anymore because of the dragons, Arya ascertained, and she felt cold all over. Dragons. Not one dragon. This was not the first time she’d heard of Daenerys having more dragons than Drogon, but she’d assumed it was just habit.

The so-called Dragon Cities were set against slavery so fiercely that their outrage rivaled even Braavos. But now the slavers knew better than to try grabbing people from Naath or much of Essos, so they were just grabbing Westerosi. Arya froze, listening. 

King Daario would be torn, they said. He hated Westeros with every fiber of his being, but these slaver captains gave their word to “Mhysa” that they would not do this at all.

Arya wondered who Mhysa was; did they mean Daenerys? But she was much more concerned about the mention of Westerosi people being captured by slavers.

She heard one of them say that the queen of the Northern kingdom was captured, and Arya needed to hear no more. She turned and ran back to her ship, to set sail and find the slavers.

Daenerys 

Daenerys had been exhausted since her return from Asshai. The beings there had scratched her up, and Daario and Kinvara had washed and tended to her. 

It was still a mystery to her that her dagger had burst into flames in Asshai. Kinvara said they would talk after she recovered fully, and that she had something very important to tell her. 

News came in that the slavers - specifically, slavers Daenerys had fought and defeated, who had promised to cease their slaving - had not only broken their word to her, but had kidnapped more people to sell. Because they felt unsafe to do so in Essos, they had kidnapped Westerosi. 

“Fuck the Westerosi,” Daario snapped, but Dany was concerned. Those slavers had promised her! 

“We can’t ignore this, or allow it,” Daenerys said. 

“My only priority is you,” Daario responded.

Kinvara encouraged her to use her healing magic on herself. 

“You’ve learned so much, my queen. If you succeed, then Daario too may consider going.”

“MAY”, Daario repeated. “For you. Not for them.” 

Dany walked to her mirror, and pulled at the magic awakened within her, watching the terrible red welts on her face and arms in her reflection fade. She could feel it. 

But not the wound on her chest and heart. It would never heal. 

“The Westerosi are awful,” she said, turning back to Daario, who was staring at her in shock, and Kinvara, who looked pleased but not surprised. “But so is slavery, and they promised me. I’m going with my children whether you join me or not. I will bring my fleet and find them.” 

Daario sighed. “If you’re going, I’m going.” 

“I must speak with you,” Kinvara said to Daenerys. 

“You can speak to me when I return.” 

She started out, gathering her armies and sending word to her fleet. She planned to stop in Braavos, to visit the Iron Bank. She’d made regular deposits there, although she’d started a small bank of her own. Her own bank was to help freed men and women buy land or ships or supplies to build their new lives, and she knew that they would do all in their power to pay her back. But there could be no guarantee for that, and she didn’t want to see people freed from slavery, now be chained by debt. She made certain to charge a low interest, which was another thing that could not be certain with the Iron Bank. 

Happily, many of them were paying her back, and it had caused her bank to flourish.

She made regular deposits in the Iron Bank, as that would guarantee interest and also, she hoped, assure them that she was not foolish enough to challenge them, that her little bank was only for her people. 

She had donned her armor and was walking toward the harbor. Kinvara was joining her, and she had something to tell her. Daenerys hated to make this woman wait; Dany would have remained dead if not for her. Would never have learned magic. Might never have seen Drogon and his brood, never have hatched the eggs from Asshai. 

But she had to act quickly and decisively. She would not allow the slavers to defy her and break their promises to her. She would give Kinvara all the time she needed after that. 

As she walked, one of her captains, a favorite, really, Captain Brozi, who was running supplies for her to Kings Landing, was approaching from the direction of the harbor. 

“Your Grace,” he began.

“I’m not the queen anymore,” she responded automatically, a little tired of repeating it. 

“You’re my queen. Always.” 

She sighed. “All right, Captain. What is it? My apologies, but I’ve not much time.” 

“You have a visitor. Quite a few visitors, to be frank. From Westeros.” 

A flash of anger passed through her. “Give them some supplies and send them away,” she said. 

“Your Grace, their flags do not bear the sigils of your enemies. No wolf or lion.”

“If it’s a Westerosi sigil, it’s my enemy.” 

“It’s a Kraken. Captain Yara Greyjoy.” 

Daenerys stopped. “Yara Greyjoy?” 

“She heard tales you were alive and wanted to see with her own eyes.” 

Daenerys sighed. She’d prefer the people of Westeros to believe her dead and gone. She’d grown up hiding, always running, and had no desire to return to that. 

And while Drogon had grown so much larger and stronger, his scales impenetrable by now, his three young ones were still young, and the others younger still. 

If those rotten Westerosi were to hunt them down, to load ships with scorpions... Daenerys shuddered. 

But Yara had been her ally. Kinvara had told Daenerys that Yara had wanted justice for Dany’s murder, and Grey Worm had said the same. 

If Daenerys had listened to Yara...

If you want the Iron Throne, take it...

Daenerys felt suddenly heartsick. A longing so fierce and anguished swept through her, that it took her breath away. She could have taken the throne, and her children, and Missandei, could have been safe, if she’d followed the advice of Yara, Ellaria and Lady Olenna. Maybe she’d have never burned the city. 

Instead she’d listened to Tyrion. 

If I look back, I am lost. 

She forced herself to walk on. “All right,” she told Brozi. “I’ll see her, but it must be quick.” 

On her ship, she went over the maps with the captain, then went to her own cabin, where Yara waited with Brozi. 

Yara’s eyes widened when she saw Dany, then a smile broke across her features. 

“It’s true,” she murmured, walking toward her, eyes taking in Dany’s chainmail armor, the sword at one hip and dagger at the other. Her smile widened. “Will you come back to Westeros?” 

“No,” Dany said. “I would prefer they continue to believe me dead. I have nothing to offer you for your silence. I hope you will give me your word and keep it, Your Grace.” 

“Your Grace?” Yara repeated. 

“Are you not queen of the Iron Islands?” 

“Yes. After a fashion. We’ve declared our independence, not that Bran the Broken or his useless small council granted it. His shrew of a sister declared Northern independence, and so sits a foreign king, but the Iron Islands and Dorne were expected to bend the knee.” 

“And did you?” 

“No, I declared independence some time later. Dorne did so immediately. Westeros is a disaster from one end to the other.”

“Westeros is not my problem anymore. What is my problem is the slave trade, which has unfortunately made some small population of Westeros my concern. They’ve captured Westerosi to sell them as slaves. I must rescue those people, much as I despise them, because I cannot allow the slavers to defy me after promising me they would cease. I defeated them in battle and they pleaded for their lives. I exacted a promise and I will not allow them to break it.” 

“Allow me to join you. I have my ships here.”

“Why would you do that? I don’t believe they’ve taken any Ironborn.” 

“Indeed not. But if they’re bold enough to take other Westerosi, it’s only a matter of time. Besides which, you destroyed Cersei. You burned my uncle’s fleet. You kept your end of our bargain and I...fell short of mine.” 

“You didn’t. I foolishly listened to Tyrion instead of you, and those closest to me paid the price for it.” 

“I wanted justice for you,” Yara said. 

“Yes. Kinvara and Grey Worm both told me. Thank you for that.” 

“Your Grace, I -“

“I’m not a queen anymore.” 

“You’re my queen,” Yara said fiercely, and Daenerys smiled faintly in gratitude. 

“That’s kind of you -“

“Kind? No. Hang kindness. You did everything you promised, and I couldn’t help you, couldn’t save you, couldn’t stop you from being murdered, couldn’t get justice for you.” 

“It’s over.”

“But this war you’re in with the slavers, isn’t. Let me provide an alliance, as I failed to do before.” 

“If you’re killed -“

“If I’m killed, I die fighting.” 

Daenerys bit her lip. “All right. I ask again, will you give me your word not to tell those in Westeros that I’m alive?” 

“You have it,” Yara said. “Mine, and the word of all my men.” 

“Thank you,” Daenerys said softly. “Thank you for everything. I can’t tell you how much I wish I did what you told me to, instead of listening to Tyrion.”

Yara’s expression softened. “I’m so sorry for what happened. You deserved better,” she said. 

She nodded then and took her leave. They would go to Braavos, take out some of her wealth from the Iron Bank, and purchase supplies. The next stop would be Pentos, where they could buy anything they couldn’t find in Braavos. 

Then she would be ready to go after the slavers. She would bring the dragons, but only Drogon and his three children, the youngest would stay behind. 

Drogon’s young ones had armor, and Drogon himself was so much stronger than he’d ever been. Truly, she would have to be cautious. She couldn’t wash the slave ships in dragon fire as she wanted, not with captives on the ships. No matter. She had learned to fight, and what’s more, she had learned magic. She had ships. She could not bring herself to call Westerosi “innocent;” especially as, if the reports were to be believed, these were Northerners. She hated them more than any other people in Westeros. But she could not allow anyone, even the miserable and awful Northmen, to be chained and enslaved if she could stop it.

Jon 

They’d decided to stop in Pentos. They were low on supplies, and would need to be fed and ready to fight. They had little to trade, but they’d brought some wood from the weirwood trees, wood that would never rot, and dragonglass, as well as salted and smoked fish, pelts, and whale oil. 

They were told in no uncertain terms that Westerosi were not welcome. Davos quickly explained the situation, and was told they had one hour. Jon’s men had gone off to trade what they had, and he could see many people walking around the wharf, talking animatedly. He had avoided Tyrion for most of the trip after that first argument. 

If Kinvara was to be believed, perhaps Tyrion had been manipulated as much as anyone. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t forgive himself. He couldn’t forgive Tyrion. He couldn’t forgive Sansa, yet he couldn’t let her be enslaved or murdered. 

Along the docks, Jon could see people talking, planning, but he didn’t speak Valyrian and couldn’t make out what they were saying. He walked for the better part of an hour, lost in miserable thoughts. 

He started back toward his ship, weighed down and tense, and then his blood was on fire as he saw a very small figure in chainmail, with a single silvery braid down her back, talking to the other men in Valyrian. It sounded like she was giving orders. She turned around, and he saw her face. Knew the instant she saw him, because her eyes turned cold as the North. 

He walked toward her, but she held up a hand in warning, her other hand going to her sword.

“Dany - “ Jon breathed, stepping closer, despite her warning, and she slapped him, hard, across the face. 

“Your Dany is dead,” she told him bluntly. “You killed whatever was left of her.”

Around them, men turned toward them, the singing of swords filling the air as they drew their steel, stepping closer. 

Daenerys glanced at them, and gave a shake of her head. They sheathed their swords obediently, but kept looking at them as they returned to their work.

Daenerys took a few steps back. “Do not approach me again.” 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything,” he said.

“Good. Now I need you to leave.”

“I thought I had to. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I understand nothing of the kind. You betrayed me in every way.”

“I was afraid you would kill my sisters.”

“So you killed me. Of course. You had to make a choice. And you chose them. But before you go back, there’s something you should know.”

She stepped slightly closer, but still out of reach. 

“What you need to know, is that I told you the truth. Your Dany is dead. Do you really think that girl would have killed your sisters? She knew you loved them, and she loved you. But that girl is gone. You murdered her and the child you’d sired on her.”

“I’m sorry, Dany. I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “I didn’t know.”

Jon saw heartbreak cross her features, and he felt as if he were being crushed, but she quickly composed herself. 

“I know well I can’t trust you,” she continued. “I know you’ll run right back to your wolf pack and tell them I’m alive so they can try again to tear me apart. Take this as a warning. 

“That girl who shivered and wept and shattered under their scheming and derision is gone. That girl who would have tried endlessly to figure out a peace, who stayed in the North to save them at the risk and loss of those loyal to her, is dead.

“I will never set foot in Westeros or deal with any of them in any way, ever. Unless they attempt to deal with me. And then I will deal with them definitively.”

“You’ll murder them.”

“If they try to harm me, yes, I will. You and Tyrion saw to the destruction of that fool who would have spared them, and whatever spark of her still burned, you doused with your dagger. If they come for me, they will regret it”.

“It didn’t seem like you’d spare them at the time,” he said, desperate for her to understand. “I thought -“

“No?” she cut him off. “I did spare them, again and again. When I burned Varys, I didn’t burn Sansa, did I?”

“You’d have killed Tyrion.”

“If I’d have killed Tyrion, Jon, Tyrion would be dead.”

“You said you couldn’t forgive him.”

“And why should I forgive him? Do you murder every former friend who did a thing to you that you couldn’t forgive?”

“Aye, I do.”

“Then you’re twice a hypocrite, Jon Snow, for murdering me because you believed I would do something that you’d have done yourself.

“But for years I could not forgive Ser Jorah for selling my secrets. I never killed him. It was Varys who bought my secrets from him, yet I took him into my service and did him no harm until he betrayed me and tried to poison me. 

“As far as Tyrion, did it ever cross his twisted mind that if he hadn’t betrayed me, his brother would be alive? That if he’d left him where I held him, he’d have been outside the city when I burned it? That if I intended to kill his brother I’d have done it immediately? That if I intended to kill Tyrion he would have been cinders the moment he threw the pin I gave him down those stairs?” 

“I murdered you because you terrified me,” Jon said. “You made it sound like you wanted to burn the world if they didn’t bend the knee. A reign of fire and blood.”

She nodded. “Of course that’s what you thought. And now it’s done. Whatever your reasons. I will leave Westeros to your brother’s reign of bloodless cold and build my world of fire and blood here. But once you decide to tell them I’m alive, it’s best to warn them. If they leave me to my peace, I’ll leave them to theirs. If they don’t, I will show them no more mercy than they’ve shown me.

“I think you should leave my cities now and do not return. We don’t like Westerosi here.”

She turned and walked away from him, and he wanted to follow her. He didn’t. He thought again about what Kinvara had told him. That they’d both been manipulated, and maybe everyone around them. Had she told Dany too?

He boarded the ship and went to his quarters, leaving orders not to be disturbed. If he saw anyone right now, he could not trust himself to be calm.


End file.
